ArticleBMJ open2024
Long-term trends in English general practice consultation rates from 1995 to 2021: a retrospective analysis of two electronic health records databases.
Article in BMJ open, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Primary care use among adults with eating disorders in England: a population-based cohort study using electronic health records.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Clinical care patterns in the 10-years prior to primary total hip replacement: a matched population-based case-control analysis in England.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Expanding Cancer Prevention: Strategies Integrated into Occupational Health Surveillance.Cancers · 2025Review
- The impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on general practitioner contacts among patients with common and at-risk diagnoses: a Norwegian registry-based study.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesAlthough primary care is central to healthcare provision, inconsistent methods and data sources mean that relatively little is known about long-term trends in general practice consultation rates. We aimed to explore long-term trends in English general practice consultation rates using two electronic health records databases, Clinical Practice Research Datalink Gold and Aurum, from 1995 to 2021.
methodsConsultations were identified and classified using a set of rules and code lists. Consultation rates were calculated as the ratio of the count of consultations and the registration duration. We used negative binomial regression to model the relationship between the number of consultations and the patient's age, sex and year from each database. These models are then used to estimate annual crude consultation rates for England.
resultsThe number of general practices in the Gold database decreased from 346 (1995) to 41 (2021), while in Aurum, it increased from 555 (1995) to 1347 (2021). In Gold, the average number of consultations per person-year increased from 2.91 in 1995 to 5.12 in 2012, then fell to 4.59 in 2019 and to 4.12 in 2021. In Aurum, average consultations per person-year rose from 2.17 (1995) to 4.89 (2012), then fell to 4.76 (2019) and rose again to 5.40 (2021). Half of the total increase in consultations from Aurum was due to a new consultation code, for 'AccurX consultations', an electronic messaging system for communication with patients.
conclusionTrends in general practice consultation showed three distinct epochs: rising from 1995 to 2012, falling from 2012 to 2019 and rising in Aurum but falling in Gold from 2019 to 2021. Consultation rates in Gold were higher than Aurum until the inclusion of a new consultation code in Aurum in 2019, which underscores the need for operational definitions of a consultation.
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