Primary Care in the United Kingdom

Combining representatives of the Ministry of Health and officials of some of the Regional Primary Care Centers, the mission of this delegation was to identify good practices in the English NHS which could be applied to Kazakhstan.

During five days of intensive training, the delegates developed a global vision of the organisation of primary care in England. Two experts from the Royal College of General Practitioners presented them with the current challenges of primary care in the United Kingdom, and in particular the reorganisations necessary to deal with the aging of the population, the monitoring of chronic pathologies and the demographic tensions which weigh on general practitioners.

Doctor Nav Chana, Director of the Association for National for Primary Care, shared with the Kazakh representatives the feedback from the healthcare networks experienced in England since 2015. His advice for successfully coordinating the various healthcare stakeholders is invaluable and will allow the delegates to fulfill their mission.

Emilie Lebée-Thomas, Director of International Programs at Dialog Health led several sessions by analyzing the structure of the English health system and identifying the elements that could be transferred to another national context. In particular, she presented an overview of technological solutions likely to meet public health challenges in Kazakhstan. Indeed, the use of digital solutions can make it possible to ensure medical permanence in rural areas and with reduced medical coverage.

A visit to a general practitioner office in Kensington provided a rich exchange opportunity. The discovery of the NHS database, which makes it possible to manage cohorts of chronic patients in a simplified manner, appealed to the Kazakh delegates. Today, a General Practice office brings together a whole team in addition to general practitioners, including nurses, social workers responsible for coordinating care paths or clinical pharmacists.

This training program enabled delegates to gather a set of practical information which served as the basis for the report they wrote for the Minister of Health of Kazakhstan as part of the transformation program funded by the World Bank.