BSACI Primary Care Working Group

Context

There is professional consensus that generalist and specialist services are failing to provide acceptable standards of care to the very many patients in the UK who experience one or more allergic problems.[1][2]  This concern is now widely appreciated within political circles, as reflected by the House of Commons Health Committee in their recent report on The Provision of Allergy Services,  which after reviewing published evidence and taking the testimonies of professional and patient representative groups concluded: ‘We find serious problems exist in the current provision of allergy services’.[3]  

In suggesting how to improve standards of care the Health Committee made the following specific recommendations:

• The creation of a network of primary care allergy providers with a named lead for allergy in each Primary Care Trust

• Improved incentives for GPs to treat allergy

• Improved training for GPs

• The introduction of a framework to facilitate the introduction of allergy into the GPs with Special Interest Programme and

• In the longer term, an increase in the allergy specialist consultant workforce.[2]

The aim of the group is to improve standards of allergy services delivered in primary care.  Our starting premise, which is based on strong theoretical and empirical grounds, is that the majority of patients who experience allergic disorders can and should be effectively and safely managed in primary care [4][5][6].  We recognise, however, the need for clear referral pathways to secondary and tertiary care to enable safe and effective management of patients with severe disease. 

Our focus mirrors very closely the primary care related issues highlighted by the House of Commons Health Committee [3], although the Primary Care Allergy Network (PCAN), run by Allergy UK, have taken on the task of creating a network of primary care allergy providers.  Following discussions at the meeting on 30th March, we propose that the group works with the BSACI to realise the following specific objectives:

Short-term (12 months)

1. To improve delivery of care by;

   1. Translating guidelines and measuring and evaluating the outcomes of their implementation

   2. Developing referral pathways

   3. Working with the BSACI and other organ-based groups to design and deliver allergy education

2. To analyse the cost benefit of advancing allergy service development in primary care

3. To understand and reflect the interests of primary care allergy-interested workforce

4. To work with allergy specialists to establish clinical supervision and mentoring opportunities for primary care practitioners where appropriate.   

5. To identify and submit clinically-relevant and measurable allergy related outcomes that could be included in future revisions of the Quality and Outcomes Framework for the General Medical Services Contract for GPs.

6. To collate information on and promote postgraduate opportunities for primary care based clinicians to develop relevant the knowledge, skills and competencies to deliver high-quality allergy care.

7. Publicise poor quality of primary care allergy services and lobby for better services

Medium-term (24 months)

• To work with the BSACI as appropriate to produce a generic undergraduate module on allergy for primary care medical, nursing and allied healthcare professional curricula that can be adapted in a bespoke fashion by higher educational institutions.

• To explore the possibility of developing a section on the NHS e-library on allergy.

• To create policy documents, training resources and accreditation procedures to facilitate the deployment of practitioners with specialist interests in allergy working at a regional level.

Longer-term (36 months)

• To lobby for funding to support research on clinical and health services research questions in relation to the primary care based management of allergic conditions

For more information and to be involved with the Primary Care Allergy Group please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .