Find a new GP - with information from the primary care trust

Primary care trusts pay all GPs in the area and should know which GPs are planning to provide health checks and which are not. They each publish a record showing which GPs provide which services, called the Guide to Primary Care Services.
So one way forward is to get a copy of the Guide from your Primary Care Trust, check which GPs offer the health check service and then try to register with each GP. You can get a copy of these from your local Primary Care Trust – if you don’t know the name of your trust, contact NHS Direct on 0845 46 47 or at www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk. If you do not wish to use the phone or do not have internet access, you will need to contact your local council – they can give you the details of your local Primary Care Trust.

Once you’ve got the guide, you will need to look at the section called ‘Quality and Outcome Framework’ and then look to see what score each surgery has for the mental health indicators. Two mental health indicators form part of this framework. They are:

  • Setting up a register of people with mental illness who consent to be on it gives a surgery (7 points)
  • Giving most of those people a health-check gives them (23 points)

You need to find a surgery which has got close to 100% for each of these indicators, which is also near to your home. You will then need to contact the surgery and try to register there. As you can imagine, this approach can be very
time-consuming and frustrating.

Any problems...

If you have any problems getting this information, contact Rethink’s advice service. Phone 020 8974 6814 (open Mon-Fri, 10am3pm), write to Rethink Advice, 28 Castle Street, Kingston upon Thames, SURREY KT1 1SS or email advice@rethink.org.