The Project
Placing trained Citizens Advice advisers inside GP practices, so that patients can resolve money, housing, benefits and legal problems in the same place they book their appointments.
Problems that begin before the consultation
Many people visit their GP with a symptom that has a practical cause. Rent arrears that cause sleepless nights, a benefit decision that stops a payment, or a debt letter that arrives during a long illness can all show up as fatigue, anxiety or low mood. The clinician can treat the symptom, but the cause often remains untouched, and the patient returns weeks later.
The project starts from a simple observation: the surgery is already where people go when their lives become difficult. By offering advice in that setting, we aim to deal with the underlying problem at the first point of contact, rather than leaving it to be found by chance.
How an adviser works in a practice
Advisers are employed by Citizens Advice and work from a room within or beside the practice on set days each week. Patients are referred by reception staff, practice nurses or GPs, or they can book directly. Each session is confidential, free and impartial, and advisers do not share a person's details with the surgery without their consent.
Advisers can help people complete forms, check entitlements, write letters to landlords or creditors, and prepare for tribunal or court hearings. Where a problem needs specialist support, they make a warm referral to the right service.
What the project covers
The service is designed around the issues that most often sit behind ill health. Each area below is available within every participating practice.
- Income, benefits and tax credit claims and appeals
- Debt, including council tax, utility bills and credit agreements
- Housing repairs, tenancy problems and threats of eviction
- Employment rights, including sick pay and unfair dismissal
- Immigration and family law questions that affect wellbeing
Why the surgery
A GP surgery is one of the few public services that nearly everyone uses. Trust is already built into the relationship, and the practice team knows the patient's history. An adviser sitting in the same building lowers the barrier of making a separate phone call or travelling to an unfamiliar office.
I came in for my blood pressure and left with a plan for my rent arrears. Nobody had ever connected those two things before.
Patient attending an adviser session
Practices also gain. Clinicians report fewer appointments that are driven by problems they cannot medically solve, and reception teams have a clear route to send people to when a conversation goes beyond what they are able to help with.
Images from the first sites
Read more about the evidence behind the approach on the need page, or see the reports and research that inform our work.