GP Practices are the cornerstone of our organisation and patients the focus. The key to our success will be the creation of high quality community based health care teams. Our network of local GP Practices gives us a unique opportunity in this regard, and this will enable GP Care to enhance the traditional strengths of UK General Practice in delivering high quality and accessible care to patients .
GP Care is an entrepreneurial and innovative organisation which will compete effectively in the UK health market. However we do not see profitability as the only marker of success, but also our contribution to the common good by improving the health care of the people we serve, and the working lives of those we employ. Properly regulated market forces can be an efficient mechanism for matching resources to needs in a developed society. Because economic activities do not simply transfer resources but create wealth it is possible to use the market to pursue profit and address inequalities simultaneously. We will work to counter balance an over-reliance on competition which can put the poor and powerless, the very people with the greatest health needs, at most risk.
GP Care is aware that the extension of market forces in healthcare could demean or damage the sense of vocation and dedication to others that has been a hallmark of the NHS. At its best healthcare is more than just a way of making a living; it is a vocation, participation in the creation of a just society, and both a right and a duty. GP Care will be an excellent employer and support the sense of vocation in its members and employees. The GP Care model, which encourages partnership from within the whole primary healthcare team, will encourage real ownership and an effective voice in the strategy and operation of the business and stresses the integration of work and worker to encourage creative skills.
Our core ethical principles as a business are as follows:
- We will incorporate a strong and explicit ethical stance into our business strategy and decision making;
- We will work in an open and accountable way, and remember our accountability to the local population;
- We will promote holistic personal care in our partners and in the services we offer;
- We will reduce health inequalities by providing high quality services to those most at need through being an efficient and effective health provider and by tendering to provide services for those most vulnerable and with the highest health needs;
- We will involve and listen to patients and develop processes which will make sure that the voice of the patients we serve is heard;
- GP Care will be an excellent employer and support the sense of vocation in its members and employees;
- GP Care will harness the entrepreneurial skills of our partners to deliver innovative service models and care pathways, whilst ensuring adherence to high ethical and clinical standards;
- The ethos of public service and the recognition of the individual patient as a uniquely valuable human being at the centre of the healthcare process are values that GP Care will safeguard and enhance.
