National Primary Medical Care Survey

Timeframe

2001–2006

Funding

Health Research Council of New Zealand

COMPASS staff

Peter Davis
Daniel Patrick
Andrew Sporle
Roy Lay-Yee
Janet Pearson
Martin von Randow

Collaborators

University of Auckland
Alastair Scott
 
Health Services Research Centre
Antony Raymont
 
Victoria University of Wellington
Gregor Coster
 
University of Otago
Peter Crampton
Sue Crengle
Phil Hider
Les Toop
Murray Tilyard
 
CBG Health Research
Barry Gribben
 
Australian National University
Marjan Kljakovic

Description

This nationwide survey was undertaken to describe consultations between primary healthcare providers and their patients. The reports that resulted from the study provided in-depth information on the content of these consultations for various different groups of practitioners and patients. The main survey instrument collected information on the work of:

  • Private General Practitioners (GPs);
  • GPs and nurses in community-governed non-profit organisations;
  • GPs and nurses in Māori-led practices; and
  • Doctors and nurses in Accident & Medical Clinics (A&Ms).

In addition to this, data were requested from four hospital emergency departments around the country on visits in one week of each quarter in 2001. These datasets were processed to make them comparable with each other and a report was prepared to summarise and compare them as well.

The main representative sample of GPs was asked to record data on the survey forms for every visit in a specific week, and then for every visit in a subsequent week six months later. Basic data were recorded on every visit, with more detailed information collected for every fourth patient seen. This resulted in basic data for more than 42,000 consultations, with full data ultimately kept for 9,682. The 12 A&Ms sampled in that arm of the study were instructed to go through the same process as the GPs, but only for a single week. This led to data on more than 6,000 consultations and full data kept for 1,430 of them.

The overall sampling process was quite complex so as to result in data that were as representative of the whole population as possible. This meant that we could robustly compare visits reported on by different types of practices, e.g. private GPs and those working in community-governed non-profits, and compare the population of visitors, e.g. by age group and ethnicity.

The Ministry of Health commissioned nine reports to be published from the data collected as part of the survey. Five of these described the experiences of doctors in different types of organisations, including the A&Ms. One report focused specifically on the work of nurses in primary healthcare, and another covered the hospital emergency departments as described. Finally, two reports focused on the patient populations: one summarised the visits of Māori patients and the other the visits of Pacific patients.