Turbulent times in Italian general practice.

I have to stress the point that the Italian government is trying to combine general practice and emergency service and out-of-hours services into single primary care units that provide 24-hour cover. From outside Italy, it could be read as the way forward for primary care groups or primary care trusts, because we see in the UK that GPs work in partnerships in the NHS. In Italy it will be totally different because single primary care units are not financially and contractually going to be trusts, but that every GP would remain in a quasi-subordinated profile with the local …