Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in Primary Care

Lynn Lansbury is NIHR CLAHRC Principal Investigator in Academic Geriatric Medicine at the University of Southampton. Here she talks about CGA in Primary Care, which she shares on Twitter @CGA_GP

Adam Gordon’s blog introduced a timely study. With an ageing population it is important that we develop services that are fit for the changing demographic. There is convincing evidence that Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) has a place in best practice for the care of older people. The evidence base is particularly strong in acute settings and studies have also been carried out in people’s homes. The Proactive Healthcare for Older People in Care Home (PEACH) study explores CGA in care homes Thus there is interest in identifying the place of CGA in other settings. Our new study, Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in Primary Care (CGA-GP): The Fit for Later Life Project funded by NIHR CLAHRC Wessex, investigates the GP surgery as a setting.

Have you got access to Summary Care Records?

Dr Emyr Wyn Jones is Clinical Ambassador at the National Implementation Summary Care Records Service: he tweets at @emyr_wyn

Were you aware of the existence of Summary Care Records (SCRs)?  They are mentioned in one of six Quick Guides that are included in a section of the NHS England website on Transforming Urgent and Emergency Care.

Almost every person in England now has a Summary care Record (SCR).  To be exact, more than 55 million people or 96% of the registered population have had a SCR uploaded electronically from their GP record to the National Spine.  This number is still increasing.  In the foreseeable future, an SCR will have been created for everyone in the country apart from those people (only 1.4% of all those who were contacted) who have indicated that they wish to opt-out of having a SCR.