Helen Salisbury: Continuity saves lives

A new research paper tells us (again) about the benefits of continuity of care. It shows that patients who stayed registered with the same GP over many years had fewer out-of-hours appointments and acute hospital admissions, as well as a reduced risk of death.1 These benefits were significant, and they increased the longer the relationship continued. In 2018, people who had kept the same GP for more than 15 years had a 25% lower chance of dying than those with a GP relationship lasting a year or less.

We spend a lot of our time prescribing …