The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has recently released the Continuity of Care Toolkit1 that gives practical advice about how to diagnose and protect the capacity of patients and practitioners to ‘retain contact with each other’ (a nice succinct definition of relational continuity). The toolkit recommends an initial diagnosis of the state of continuity of care in the practice as a trigger for conversations about what specific actions can be taken to safeguard continuity of care. Starting this conversation has just become easier with the availability of a Continuity Calculator,2 which helps practitioners generate the needed continuity statistics for the practice.
The toolkit is a welcome response to more than a decade of policy initiatives focusing almost exclusively on improving dimensions of continuity of care that relate to coordinated and consistent management of diseases and facilitated information flow between providers. The need to organise and coordinate care in a way that preserves and promotes relational continuity has not been on the policy radar. From across the Atlantic, we applaud the College’s publication of the toolkit and affirm that its relevance extends well beyond the College’s UK membership.
RELATIONSHIP-CENTRED CARE
However, before applying the toolkit to facilitate continuity, it is helpful to remember that continuity is …