Helen Salisbury: Is transactional care enough?

I’m lucky enough to have been in the same practice since 2002, and I’m still discovering things about the patients I look after, making connections that deepen my understanding of who they are and how illness affects them. Terms that have been used to describe me, or the kind of general practice that I think all patients should have, include old fashioned, nostalgic, or hopelessly unrealistic.

A distinction has been drawn between transactional and relationship based (or relational) care. In transactional care the patient has a specific need, a condition is diagnosed and treated, a …