Individual research recommendation details

Recommendation ID

NG56/1

Question

Organisation of care:- What is the clinical and cost effectiveness of alternative approaches to organising primary care compared with usual care for people with multimorbidity?

Any explanatory notes
(if applicable)

Why this is important:- The guideline committee felt that primary care was well suited to managing multimorbidity, but agreed that this was often challenging partly because of how primary care is currently organised.
However, there was inadequate high-quality research on alternative approaches to organising care for people with multimorbidity. Trials should be undertaken to examine the impact of different strategies on important clinical outcomes, quality of life and cost effectiveness. The committee believed that no single trial could likely address this research need, because there are many
plausible interventions and many defined populations in which such interventions might be of value.
Large, well-designed trials of alternative ways of organising general practice based primary care for people with multimorbidity would be of value in defined patient groups (for example, people with multimorbidity who find it difficult to manage their treatment or care or day-to-day activities, people with multiple providers or services involved in their care, people with both long-term physical and mental health problems, people with well-defined frailty, people frequently using unscheduled care, people prescribed multiple regular medicines, and people who are housebound or care home residents).
Such trials should have clear identification and justification of the planned target population, careful piloting and optimisation, and well-described interventions. They need to be sufficiently powered to provide evidence of clinically important effects of interventions on outcomes that are relevant to patients and health and social care services (for example, quality of life, hospital and care home admission, mortality).

Source guidance details

Comes from guidance

Multimorbidity: clinical assessment and management

Number

NG56

Date issued

September 2016

Other details