CARE_01EngagingCare for Focus Patients
Understand the Health and Care of Your Focus Patients
Summary
Use practice data to identify where your Focus Patient group is underrepresented in key clinical services or experiencing poorer outcomes.
Supporting information
Understanding how your Focus Patient group engages with key clinical services reveals hidden inequalities in care delivery. This mapping exercise transforms general concerns about equity into specific, actionable clinical improvements.
Approaches to implementation:
- Extract data showing uptake of key services (screening, immunisations, chronic disease reviews) by your Focus Patient group
- Compare rates with practice averages to identify significant gaps
- Investigate reasons for lower engagement through staff discussions and patient feedback
- Prioritise 2-3 clinical areas where inequalities are most pronounced
- Set specific improvement targets for Focus Patient engagement in these areas
Key benefits: Moves from assumption to evidence about where clinical inequalities exist, enables targeted quality improvement, and demonstrates commitment to proportionate universalism in clinical care.