Introduction to Primary Health Care

The New Zealand Association of Occupational Therapists (NZAOT) believes occupational therapy has a significant role to play and a legitimate set of functions within primary health care. 

Primary health relates to professional health care received in the community, usually from your GP or practice nurse. Primary health care provides an entry point to the health system, delivers core medical and preventative care and helps patients co-ordinate and integrate their care.

The definition of primary health care drawn up at the International Conference on Primary Health Care, Alma-Ata, September 1978 is:

"Primary health care is essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford to maintain at every stage of their development in the spirit of self-reliance and self-determination.

It forms an integral part both of the country's health system, of which it is the central function and main focus, and of the overall social and economic development of the community. It is the first level of contact of individuals, the family and community with the national health system bringing health care as close as possible to where people live and work, and constitutes the first element of a continuing health care process." *

The exact nature of the occupational therapy roles will vary, as they do within secondary or tertiary health, and will be related to the target population, the individuals who are receiving the services, the techniques and approaches used by the occupational therapists providing the services, and the interests, focus and expertise of those occupational therapists. 

However there are two key aspects of developing new roles and functions for occupational therapists in primary health that the NZAOT sees itself particularly supporting:

• addressing issues of people not seeing a role for occupational therapists in primary health care, and
• the employment model of primary health care being different from that in secondary and tertiary health care and education. 

The NZAOT is developing these web pages to help address these two key aspects.

 

* Retrieved 14/03/11 from http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/phcs-faq#what