Eligibility

General practice is an academic and scientific discipline with its own educational content, research, evidence base and clinical activity. It is a clinical speciality orientated to primary health care.

Each practice is required to register with the College to undertake the CORNERSTONE process and to make a declaration that their service meets the criteria to be classified as a general practice. An incorrect declaration may make a practice ineligible for accreditation.

General practice:

  1. Is personal, family and community oriented, comprehensive primary care that continues over time, is anticipatory as well as responsive, and is not limited by the age, gender, race, religion or social circumstances of the patient nor by their physical or mental states.
  2. Is normally the point of first medical contact within the health system, providing open and unlimited access to its users, dealing with all health problems regardless of the age, gender, culture or any other characteristic of the person concerned.
  3. Makes efficient use of the health care resources through coordination of care, working with other health professionals in the primary health setting, managing the interface with other specialities, and taking an advocacy role for the patient when needed.
  4. Develops a person-centred approach, orientated to the individual, as well as an approach that is responsive to the needs of the family/whanau and their community.
  5. Has a unique consultation process that establishes a relationship over time, through effective communication between clinician and patient.
  6. Is responsible for the provision of longitudinal continuity of care as determined by the needs of the patient.
  7. Has a specific decision-making process determined by the needs of the patient.
  8. Diagnoses and manages simultaneously both acute and chronic health problems of individual patients.
  9. Diagnoses and manages illness which presents in an undifferentiated way at an early stage of its development, which may require urgent intervention.
  10. Promotes health and well-being through appropriate and effective intervention
  11. Has a specific responsibility for health in the community
  12. Deals with  health problems in the physical, psychological, social and cultural dimensions