The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
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Transitions between healthcare settings are vulnerable points for patients. ⋯ This study identified specific threats to safe patient transitions from hospital to primary care, providing policymakers and healthcare providers with targets for quality improvement strategies. Further work would need to identify factors underpinning these threats so that interventions can be tailored to the relevant behavioural and environmental contexts in which these threats arise.
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There is widespread concern over the recruitment and retention of GPs in England. Income is a fundamental consideration affecting the attractiveness of working in general practice. ⋯ The decrease in GP income adjusted for sessions worked and inflation over the last decade may have contributed to the current problems with recruitment and retention.
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Current funding arrangements for undergraduate medical student placements in general practice are widely regarded as outdated, inequitable, and in need of urgent review. ⋯ The costs of undergraduate placements in general practice are considerably greater than funding available at time of writing, and broadly comparable with secondary care funding in the same period. The actual cost of placing a medical student full time in general practice for a 37-week academic year is 40 700 GBP (53 640 USD) compared with the average payment rate of only 22 000 GBP (28 990 USD) per year at the time this study was undertaken.