Box 1.

How to calculate the SLICC

Collect all GP face-to-face appointments for a patient group (for example, all patients on a particular doctor’s personal list) over a specified time period into a spreadsheet.a Include which doctor the appointment was with and which doctor’s list the patient is on. Count which appointments were with the patients’ personal/registered GP. Divide the number of appointments for the group that were with the personal GPs by the total number of appointments for the group. Express as a percentage.

^aThe patient group would usually be a GP’s personal list/list of registered patients as this allows comparison between doctors within a practice. The specified time period could be as short as a month, to allow regular repeated measurements that build up a picture of delivery of continuity of care in the longer term. SLICC = St Leonard’s Index of Continuity of Care.