SummaryBackgroundPrimary care is the main source of health care in many health systems, including the UK National Health Service (NHS), but few objective data exist for the volume and nature of primary care activity. With rising concerns that NHS primary care workload has increased substantially, we aimed to assess the direct clinical workload of general practitioners (GPs) and practice nurses in primary care in the UK.MethodsWe did a retrospective analysis of GP and nurse consultations of non-temporary patients registered at 398 English general practices between April, 2007, and March, 2014. We used data from electronic health records routinely entered in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, and linked CPRD data to national datasets. Trends in age-standardised and sex-standardised consultation rates were modelled with joinpoint regression analysis.FindingsThe dataset comprised 101 818 352 consultations and 20 626 297 person-years of observation. The crude annual consultation rate per person increased by 10·51%, from 4·67 in 2007–08, to 5·16 in 2013–14. Consultation rates were highest in infants (age 0–4 years) and elderly people (≥85 years), and were higher for female patients than for male patients of all ages. The greatest increases in age-standardised and sex-standardised rates were in GPs, with a rise of 12·36% per 10 000 person-years, compared with 0·9% for practice nurses. GP telephone consultation rates doubled, compared with a 5·20% rise in surgery consultations, which accounted for 90% of all consultations. The mean duration of GP surgery consultations increased by 6·7%, from 8·65 min (95% CI 8·64–8·65) to 9·22 min (9·22–9·23), and overall workload increased by 16%.InterpretationOur findings show a substantial increase in practice consultation rates, average consultation duration, and total patient-facing clinical workload in English general practice. These results suggest that English primary care as currently delivered could be reaching saturation point. Notably, our data only explore direct clinical workload and not indirect activities and professional duties, which have probably also increased. This and additional research questions, including the outcomes of workload changes on other sectors of health care, need urgent answers for primary care provision internationally.FundingDepartment of Health Policy Research Programme.

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BackgroundWorkload in general practice has risen during the last decade, but the factors associated with this increase are unclear.AimTo examine factors associated with consultation rates in general practice.Design and settingA cross-sectional study examining a sample of 304 937 patients registered at 316 English practices between 2013 and 2014, drawn from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink.MethodAge, sex, ethnicity, smoking status, and deprivation measures were linked with practice-level data on staffing, rurality, training practice status, and Quality and Outcomes Framework performance. Multilevel analyses of patient consultation rates were conducted.ResultsConsultations were grouped into three types: all (GP or nurse), GP, and nurse. Non-smokers consulted less than current smokers (all: rate ratio [RR] = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.87 to 0.89; GP: RR = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.87 to 0.89; nurse: RR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.90 to 0.92). Consultation rates were higher for those in the most deprived quintile compared with the least deprived quintile (all: RR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.16 to 1.19; GP: RR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.15 to 1.19; nurse: RR = 1.13, 95% CI = 1.11 to 1.15). For all three consultation types, consultation rates increased with age and female sex, and varied by ethnicity. Rates in practices with >8 and ≤19 full-time equivalent (FTE) GPs were higher compared with those with ≤2 FTE GPs (all: RR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.06 to 1.49; GP: RR = 1.36, 95% CI = 1.19 to 1.56).ConclusionThe analyses show consistent trends in factors related to consultation rates in general practice across three types of consultation. These data can be used to inform the development of more sophisticated staffing models, and resource allocation formulae.

ObjectivesConsultation duration has previously been shown to be associated with patient, practitioner and practice characteristics. However, previous studies were conducted outside the UK, considered only small numbers of general practitioner (GP) consultations or focused primarily on practitioner-level characteristics. We aimed to determine the patient-level and practice-level factors associated with duration of GP and nurse consultations in UK primary care.Design and settingCross-sectional data were obtained from English general practices contributing to the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) linked to data on patient deprivation and practice staffing, rurality and Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) achievement.Participants218 304 patients, from 316 English general practices, consulting from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014.AnalysisMultilevel mixed-effects models described the association between consultation duration and patient-level and practice-level factors (patient age, gender, smoking status, ethnic group, deprivation and practice rurality, number of full-time equivalent GPs/nurses, list size, consultation rate, quintile of overall QOF achievement and training status).ResultsMean duration of face-to-face GP consultations was 9.24 min and 5.32 min for telephone consultations. Nurse face-to-face and telephone consultations lasted 9.70 and 5.73 min on average, respectively. Longer GP consultation duration was associated with female patient gender, practice training status and older patient age. Shorter duration was associated with higher deprivation and consultation rate. Longer nurse consultation duration was associated with male patient gender, older patient age and ever smoking; and shorter duration with higher consultation rate. Observed differences in duration were small (eg, GP consultations with female patients compared with male patients were 8 s longer on average).ConclusionsSmall observed differences in consultation duration indicate that patients are treated similarly regardless of background. Increased consultation duration may be beneficial for older or comorbid patients, but the benefits and costs of increased consultation duration require further study.

In the Oxford region, trends for breast cancer mortality based on underlying cause and on mentions were very similar. For all ages combined, mortality rates peaked for both underlying cause and mentions in 1985 and then started to decline, prior to the introduction of the NHSBSP in 1988. Between 1979 and 2009, for mortality measured as underlying cause, rates declined by -2.1% (95% CI -2.7 to -1.4) per year for women aged 40-49 years (unscreened), and by the same percentage per year (-2.1% [-2.4 to -1.7]) for women aged 50-64 years (screened). In England, the first estimated changes in trend occurred prior to the introduction of screening, or before screening was likely to have had an effect (between 1982 and 1989). Thereafter, the downward trend was greatest in women aged under 40 years: -2.0% per year (-2.8 to -1.2) in 1988-2001 and -5.0% per year (-6.7 to -3.3) in 2001-2009. There was no evidence that declines in mortality rates were consistently greater in women in age groups and cohorts that had been screened at all, or screened several times, than in other (unscreened) women, in the same time periods. Conclusions Mortality statistics do not show an effect of mammographic screening on population-based breast cancer mortality in England.

OBJECTIVE In this study, the authors examined trends in population-based hospital admission rates, patient-level case fatality rates (CFRs), and population-based mortality rates for nontraumatic (spontaneous) subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) in England. METHODS Population-based admission and mortality data (59,599 people admitted to a hospital with SAH, 1999–2010; 37,836 people whose death certificates mentioned SAH, 1995–2010) were analyzed. RESULTS Hospital admission rates for SAH per million population declined by 18.3%, from 100.4 (95% CI 97.6−103.1) in 1999 to 82.0 (95% CI 79.7−84.4) in 2010. CFRs at less than 30 days per 100 patients decreased by 18.2%, from 29.7 (95% CI 28.5−31.0) in 1999 to 24.3 (95% CI 23.2−25.5) in 2010. Population-based mortality rates per million population, where SAH was recorded as underlying cause of death on the death certificate, declined by 39.8%, from 41.2 (95% CI 39.5−43.0) in 1999 to 24.8 (95% CI 23.6−26.1) in 2010. CONCLUSIONS Population-based hospital admission rates, patient-level CFRs, and population-based mortality rates all declined between 1999 and 2010. Part of the decline in mortality rates for SAH is likely to be attributable to a decline in incidence. It is also, in part, attributable to increased survival after SAH. The available data do not allow us to compare the effects of different treatment methods for SAH on case fatality and mortality. During the period of study, mortality rates declined by almost 40%, and it is likely that there are a number of factors contributing to this substantial improvement in outcomes for SAH patients in England.

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Optimizing vitamin D status through the use of supplementation and/or judicious sun exposure has been proposed as a BC risk reduction strategy. This simple and non-invasive approach to BC prevention is extremely appealing given that vitamin D concentrations in circulation are low in many individuals around the world. However, an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report found the evidence on vitamin D and breast cancer to be inconsistent. To clarify the relationship between vitamin D and breast cancer, data was pooled on approximately 25,000 women from 17 prospective cohorts worldwide. The association between pre-diagnostic circulating 25(OH)D levels, the accepted measure of vitamin D status, and breast cancer incidence was examined. For five cohorts, vitamin D status was assessed at a central laboratory (Heartland Assays, Inc.) using a direct, competitive chemiluminescence immunoassay that measures 25(OH)D2 and 25(OH)D3 equivalently. In 12 cohorts with previously measured 25(OH)D levels, a stratified sample of 29 controls was re-assayed at Heartland Assays and used to calibrate existing levels to a central assay using robust linear regression analyses. We standardized 25(OH) D levels for season using a periodic sine/cosine function. Conditional logistic regression analyses were performed in each study and were then pooled to generate pooled odds ratios by study-specific quantiles, consortium wide-quantiles, absolute cut points based on IOM guidance. Our preliminary analyses included 10,353 cases of incident invasive breast cancer (5305 estrogen receptor (ER) positive cases and 1311 (ER) negative cases and 12,313 matched controls. Median calibrated 25(OH)D levels in controls varied from 33 to 70 nmol/L across the cohorts. The consortium-wide median 25(OH)D among controls was 22% higher in summer as compared to winter months. Across all studies, median age at blood draw was 41 to 70 years; and median elapsed time from blood draw to diagnosis ranged from 2 to 13 years. The pooled odds ratio of breast cancer, comparing the highest to lowest study-specific 25(OH)D quintile, was 0.99 (95% confidence interval 0.90-1.08) after adjusting for body mass index, physical activity, menopausal status, menopausal hormone therapy use, parity/age at first birth, and family history of breast cancer. Results were not significantly different in analyses stratified by age of diagnosis (<50, 50-60, 60+ y).or by ER status. When calibrated circulating 25(OH)D levels were categorized based on the IOM definitions of "deficiency", "inadequacy", "adequacy", and "beyond adequacy", risk was similar across the categories. Further analyses are ongoing to examine especially low and high 25(OH)D concentrations, whether the vitamin D association varies according to tumor characteristics, the importance of elapsed time between blood draw and diagnosis. These will be completed before the meeting. In conclusion, preliminary results from the largest pooled analysis of prospective studies to date show no association between 25(OH)D levels and breast cancer risk and therefore suggest that increasing Vitamin D levels may not be an effective risk reduction strategy for breast cancer. Citation Format: Kala Visvanathan, Alison Mondul, Anne Zeleniuch-Jacquotte, Toqir K Mukhtar, Stephanie A Smith-Warner, Regina G Ziegler, On Behalf of Investigators in the Vitamin D Pooling Project of Breast and Colorectal Cancer. Circulating vitamin D concentrations and breast cancer risk: A pooled analysis of 17 cohorts [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-07-01.