Analysis

Improving youth primary care

3 mins read Mental health Health
Specialist community wellbeing project for young people can be blueprint for reforms, says expert.
Ann Hagell is an independent consultant in youth health and associate at the Association for Young People's Health

The government is currently consulting on a 10-year health plan for England. Central planks include moving care from hospitals to communities, and focusing on prevention, not treatment. Reinforcing primary care seems an obvious route to both and Wes Streeting’s first ministerial visit as Health Secretary was to a GP surgery.

With much discussion around the potential for “youth hubs” to address emerging mental health problems, family support, employment assistance, or violence prevention, primary care offers a pre-existing, trusted and local offer that could be built on.

However, young people often express less satisfaction with primary care than other age groups. They report particular barriers to accessing their GPs, including difficulties in fitting healthcare around education, challenges navigating systems for booking appointments, and misunderstandings around privacy and consent.

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