Family practice
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Practice nurses have an important role in promoting healthy eating to prevent or delay long-term complications from chronic lifestyle-related diseases. ⋯ Further research using the identified facilitators and barriers for promoting healthy eating in primary care patients with chronic diseases could assist in the development of future training programmes for practice nurses.
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Deprescribing (planned, supervised discontinuation) of statins may be considered in some older persons. This should be carefully discussed between patients and GPs. ⋯ GPs prefer brief discussions on a range of topics when discussing statin deprescribing but have differing views on which topics are most important. For deprescribing communication tools to be useful to GPs in clinical practice, they may need to focus on brief coverage of the range of relevant topics. Future work should evaluate patient preferences, and opportunities for education and training for GPs on deprescribing communication.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has focussed attention on models of healthcare that avoid face-to-face contacts between clinicians and patients, and teleconsultations have become the preferred mode of primary care delivery. However, the effectiveness of remote consultations in this setting remains unclear. ⋯ Teleconsultations via telephone or videoconference are an effective alternative to face-to-face consultations for many patients attending primary care and mental health services. Teleconsultations have the potential to deliver time-efficient and lower-cost interventions at a distance while improving access to healthcare.