LSHTM 2022/23 Series on Primary Health Care

‘Primary Health Care: The heart of every health system’ was the title of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s 2022/23 Public Health & Policy online monthly seminar series which to date has welcomed leading experts as speakers and over 2000 unique viewers from across the world.

The series kicked off with a passionate panel debate discussing why Primary Health Care often struggles to find itself at the heart of every health system, despite its importance for the well-being of all communities and a necessity for the effectiveness of all health systems.

Following this, the perennial question of, ‘What is Primary (Health) Care?’ was tackled, with a whistlestop tour of the historical underpinnings of both the concepts of Primary Health Care and Primary Care. In keeping with the WHO’s 2020 Operational Framework, Primary Health Care was defined broadly as a whole-of-society approach to health aiming to ensure the highest possible level of health and wellbeing and their equitable distribution using a three-pillar approach. These three pillars were explored in the following sessions - Multisectoral Action and Policy; Empowered People and Communities; and Integrated health services including Primary Care and Public Health.

Primary Care was defined as the health services required to comprehensively provide care across the continuum of health promotion, disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care – providing the first point of contact, coordination, and continuity of care. The latter four seminars explored what was needed to Finance Primary Care – at a national and local level; to get the Primary Care Workforce right – including the importance of family medicine and wider multidisciplinary team; to hold things together with adequate Primary Care Infrastructure – including the physical, transport, medicines, digital, evidence-base and research needs; and finally Measuring, Regulating and Improving Quality in Primary Care was discussed with its complexity and pitfalls.

The series is available to anyone to watch. If you would like to keep in touch about future PHC related events at LSHTM you can subscribe to LSHTM’s PHC Interest Group mailing list. Many thanks to all the speakers and advisory group involved in planning and delivering the series. The final panel debate will take place in the Autumn, details will be provided on the LSHTM PHC events webpage shortly.

Luisa Pettigrew
Luke Allen
Josephine Exley

Co-Leads of LSHTM’s Primary Health Care Interest Group