The UK’s Frontline

Editor’s note: This film is no longer available online. 

A film by Sasha Djurkovic and Alex Niakaris

Good primary care is pivotal in a healthcare system – it is an aspiration for countries around the world desperate to keep costs down and reduce pressures on their hospitals.

The UK boasts nearly 10,000 local doctor’s practices, providing primary healthcare to some 60 million people.

Britain’s National Health Service was founded in 1948 with the ethos that healthcare should be free at the point of need.

Primary care is critical to making this a reality; today it delivers 90 percent of all healthcare for only 8.5 percent of the total health budget.

With the ever-increasing costs of care and an ageing population, doctors are under a lot of pressure to keep everyone healthy.

Through the lives of the doctors and patients at Killick Street Health Centre, a busy London doctors’ practice that opened its doors 17 years ago, we explore their crucial role in the health system and the challenges they face.