A new support worker role in healthcare

There are a considerable number of challenges facing people working in healthcare at present, not least of which is that the population they serve is ageing and staying alive longer with medical support. Healthcare budgets are under extreme pressure and, with patients with more complex needs requiring intense treatment, we are looking at a perfect storm. At the same time, to reduce costs and to keep patients closer to home, which is what they say they want (rather than hospital care) the Five Year Forward View1 from NHS England, among other recent reports looking into the future, suggests scaling up community services. This has long been a political theme but is now part of the vision for our immediate future. 

The Five Year Forward Viewsummarises its own goals by stating: “the NHS will take decisive steps to break down barriers in how care is provided between family doctors and hospitals, between physical and mental health, between health and social care. The future will see far more care delivered locally but with some services in specialist centres, organised to support people with multiple health conditions, not just single diseases.” The Vanguard projects currently running, are exploring some different models of how care may work in the future.

The chair of the Royal College of GPs , Dr Maureen Baker, has said that GPs are at a crossroads – with primary care on the brink. She referenced her own recent prediction that patient safety is at enormous risk in general practice caused by exhausted GPs with excessive workloads and stress.2