Table 1 Countries with strong primary care

Countries with strong overall primary care tend to share the following similarities [22]:

1. GPs have a central role in primary care, as they perform a gatekeeper function. They are the main point of entry to the rest of the healthcare system. GPs take on a medical advocacy role for individual patients. They monitor the health of the patients and they coordinate patient care

2. Countries with strong primary care have formally committed themselves to universal access to primary care. All these countries tend to lower the primary care co-payments, in particular for GP visits, as much as possible

Countries with a strong primary care in Europe are: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark, and Slovenia [22]