Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • RESOURCES
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • BJGP Blog
    • eLetters
    • Feedback
    • Librarian information
    • Alerts
    • Resilience
    • Video
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
    • RCGP e-Portfolio

User menu

  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
British Journal of General Practice
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
    • RCGP e-Portfolio
  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in
  • Follow bjgp on Twitter
  • Visit bjgp on Facebook
  • Blog
Advertisement
British Journal of General Practice

Advanced Search

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • RESOURCES
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • BJGP Blog
    • eLetters
    • Feedback
    • Librarian information
    • Alerts
    • Resilience
    • Video
Editorials

Collaboration in primary care: the need to see the bigger picture

Rosamund Bryar
British Journal of General Practice 2008; 58 (549): 231-234. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp08X279733
Rosamund Bryar
City University, London
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

The mantras of collaboration, teamwork, interdisciplinary learning, and education have been urged on primary healthcare teams for a very long time. In the UK, Spencer1 suggests that this advocacy goes back to the Dawson Report of 1920,2 but observes: ‘Nevertheless, although the PHCT [primary healthcare team] is widely advocated as the best means for delivering health care in the community, there are problems in realising this ambition.’1

Two papers in this issue illustrate the continuing nature of these teamwork problems.3,4 The papers are concerned with the delivery of palliative care services, but the issues they expose are those associated with interdisciplinary teamwork rather than being uniquely related to palliative care.

It is accepted that to provide high quality preventive, curative, or rehabilitation care necessitates input from a range of healthcare and other practitioners. To provide such care requires effective communication between all contributors to the care of the individual or community. The basis effective overall communication starts from good communication within a profession. Effective communication then needs to extend to members of other professions and disciplines who form the immediate working team and, subsequently, to members of other teams or organisations.

Communication is fundamental to effective teamworking. Focusing on primary care, we know that teamwork can be enhanced by: co-location; facilitated practice-based education; interprofessional learning; shared record systems; shared goals, plans, and activities; and possibly through shared management systems and remuneration.5–10

Fundamental to these approaches to the development of teamwork in primary health care is the idea that education, the organisation of services, and access to resources all need to be utilised to help facilitate and stimulate teamworking. Various approaches to education of practitioners in primary care have been used to develop teamwork. Thomas and colleagues in Liverpool in the 1980s …

View Full Text
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

In this issue

British Journal of General Practice: 58 (549)
British Journal of General Practice
Vol. 58, Issue 549
April 2008
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Or,
sign in or create an account with your email address
Email Article

Thank you for recommending British Journal of General Practice.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person to whom you are recommending the page knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Collaboration in primary care: the need to see the bigger picture
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from British Journal of General Practice
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from British Journal of General Practice.
Citation Tools
Collaboration in primary care: the need to see the bigger picture
Rosamund Bryar
British Journal of General Practice 2008; 58 (549): 231-234. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp08X279733

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
Collaboration in primary care: the need to see the bigger picture
Rosamund Bryar
British Journal of General Practice 2008; 58 (549): 231-234. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp08X279733
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Jump to section

  • Top
  • Article
    • REFERENCES
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF

More in this TOC Section

  • Aspirin for primary prevention of CVD in CKD: where do we stand?
  • Prostate cancer treatment choices: the GP’s role in shared decision making
  • Human factors in general practice: what it means for practice, training, and CPD
Show more Editorials

Related Articles

Cited By...

Advertisement

 

Register Now for the BJGP Research Conference, 12 March 2020

BJGP Open

 

@BJGPjournal's Likes on Twitter

 
 

British Journal of General Practice

NAVIGATE

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • All Issues
  • Online First
  • Authors & reviewers

RCGP

  • BJGP for RCGP members
  • BJGP Open
  • RCGP eLearning
  • InnovAiT Journal
  • Jobs and careers
  • RCGP e-Portfolio

MY ACCOUNT

  • RCGP members' login
  • Subscriber login
  • Activate subscription
  • Terms and conditions

NEWS AND UPDATES

  • About BJGP
  • Alerts
  • RSS feeds
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

AUTHORS & REVIEWERS

  • Submit an article
  • Writing for BJGP: research
  • Writing for BJGP: other sections
  • BJGP editorial process & policies
  • BJGP ethical guidelines
  • Peer review for BJGP

CUSTOMER SERVICES

  • Advertising
  • Contact subscription agent
  • Copyright
  • Librarian information

CONTRIBUTE

  • BJGP Blog
  • eLetters
  • Feedback

CONTACT US

BJGP Journal Office
RCGP
30 Euston Square
London NW1 2FB
Tel: +44 (0)20 3188 7679
Email: journal@rcgp.org.uk

British Journal of General Practice is an editorially-independent publication of the Royal College of General Practitioners
© 2019 British Journal of General Practice

Print ISSN: 0960-1643
Online ISSN: 1478-5242