Long Term Medical Conditions (LTMC)

The Long Term Medical Conditions Clinic is an innovative approach to the way the practice cares for patients with long term conditions (asthma, diabetes, stroke, hypertension, COPD, coronary heart disease). It allows us to recall patients to have their conditions and medication reviewed in more efficient way. After consulting with a group of patients, the clinic was set up to reduce the need for patients to make multiple visits to the practice to see the practice nurse and the doctor. The LTMC clinic is run by Health Care Assistants (HCAs), Practice Nurses and Doctors, all working together.
 

Why do we need LTMC?

The practice has over 6000 patients with one or more long term medical conditions (LTMCs) and we have a responsibility to see all of these patients at least once a year (more often in some cases) to check that everything is going well with the management of their condition and any medication they are using. If a patient has more than one condition, we need to review them for each condition. Reviewing patients in this way represents about 30% of the entire workload of the practice. By carrying out these reviews more efficiently we have hope to achieve these objectives

  • allow patients more time with the doctor/nurse team for help and advice on the management of their condition
  • give patients more control over the management of their condition
  • reduce the need for patients to make multiple visits to the practice to see the nurse and the doctor
  • provide a more "joined-up" approach to the care of patients with more than one LTMC
  • better allocation of the practice resources so that we have more time for the important stuff like providing good quality health advice for all of our patients