What is primary care? – Primary Care Zone

Question: What is primary care?
- Keywords:
  care,
  definition,
  subject
Asked by Blake H on 29 Apr 2022.
- Sarah Chalmers-Page answered on 28 Mar 2022:
  
  Primary care is the first level of healthcare – people like your GP, the GP nurse, or NHS services like direct access physiotherapy, where you don’t need a GP to write you a referral to go. It is about 90% of the times people see a health professional – usually for either minor illnesses, routine care for things like asthma or preventative care like vaccines – or for referring you on to the right specialist in a hospital.
- Laurence Quirk answered on 28 Mar 2022:
  
  Great Question Blake. If you see Sarah’s answer below it’s really good. If you think about primary care – being like your primary school, its the first school that you go to so it might be the first place to go to get treatment. It can be you doctor or GP but it can also be about going to the pharmacist or chemist and asking for advice or to buy over the counter medications.
- Lynne Thompson answered on 29 Mar 2022:
  
  For me Blake primary care is the first response to your own personal emergency. Every one sees their own illness in a unique was. As Sarah and Laurence have stated it is the first line of help. Within the ambulance service we provide primary care too. This is usually an immediate response rather than booking a GP appointment but should be for the most life threatening situations only.
- Jamie Hynes answered on 27 Apr 2022:
  
  Primary: First
  
  Most people don’t go to hospital first with their medical problem- some A&Es may feel differently! Only 10% of healthcare encounters happen in a hospital- 90% of healthcare contacts are with problems that don’t need a specialist doctor- seeing a GP, a Nurse, a Pharmacist, a Care Navigator helps to identify the best way to manage the problem first

Question: What is primary care?

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