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The lack of joined-up care is the biggest frustration for patients, service users and carers. Conversely, achieving integrated care would be the biggest contribution the health and care services could make to improving quality and safety.

In this report, National Voices members describe how person centred care should look by 2020 and how to achieve it

In our work at National Voices, every day we hear about ways in which primary care professionals have made a positive difference to people living with mental and physical health conditions and disability. However, we also increasingly hear that the current state of play for primary care services is not working – for people accessing these services or for the primary care workforce. We find ourselves at a crossroads.

Policy makers have been aspiring to a ‘patient-centred NHS’ in England for at least 20 years. Person-centred care has become an increasingly prominent stated ambition both of national policy and local practice.

On 11 November, National Voices wrote to Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to congratulate him on his re-appointment and to share our insights and concerns ahead of what is predicted to be one of the toughest winters in NHS history.

In February, The Integration of Primary and Community Care Committee published its call for evidence, inviting the public to provide their views on the delivery of integrated primary and community care services as part of its inquiry.

There is increasing consensus that people with long term conditions and disabilities should be supported to live the lives they want to lead, and receive the treatment, care and support they identify and need.

Timely access to care is now the most pressing concern of people who live with health conditions, disability or impairment, and what they talk to National Voices members about. Delays, waits, service disruptions and cancellations are now so widespread that it can seem difficult to find areas of healthcare that aren’t affected.

Primary care services are the front door to the NHS – they are the first port of call when we feel unwell and the main coordinator of care when we are living with health conditions. The primary care team have an important role in making people feel welcomed, listened to and taken seriously.