Background: Educational activity in general practice has increased considerably in the past 20 years. Vertical integration, whereby practices support students and trainees at different stages, may enhance general practices' capacity to fulfil this role.
Aims: To explore the potential for vertical integration in undergraduate and postgraduate education in general practice, by describing the experience of (and attitudes towards) 'vertical integration in general practice education' among key stakeholder groups.
Methods: Qualitative study of GPs, practice staff, GPs-in-training and medical students involving focus groups which were thematically analysed.
Results: We identified four overarching themes: (1) Important practical features of vertical integration are interaction between learners at different stages, active involvement in clinical teams and interagency collaboration; (2) Vertical integration may benefit GPs/practices, students and patients through improved practice systems, exposure to team-working and multi-morbidity and opportunistic health promotion, respectively; (3) Capacity issues may challenge its implementation; (4) Strategies such as recognising and addressing diverse learner needs and inter-agency collaboration can promote vertical integration.
Conclusions: Vertical integration, whereby practices support students and trainees at different stages, may enhance general practices' teaching capacity. Recognising the diverse educational needs of learners at different stages and collaboration between agencies responsible for the planning and delivery of specialist training and medical degree programmes would appear to be important.