Mission & Objectives
What the Association exists to do, and the principles that guide its work.
Mission Statement
To support private family doctors in delivering careful, continuous and ethical care to the families they serve, and to strengthen family medicine as a profession through shared learning and common standards.
Guiding Principles
The Association's work rests on a small number of principles: that medicine practised over time is better medicine; that a doctor's competence must be maintained deliberately; that patient confidence depends on confidentiality; and that independent practitioners are stronger as a professional community than as individuals.
Objectives
1. A professional forum for private family doctors
Doctors in independent practice often work without immediate colleagues. The Association provides a body through which they can meet, correspond and consult one another professionally.
2. Continuing professional development
Family medicine covers a wide clinical range. The Association encourages members to keep their knowledge current and to share what they learn with the membership.
3. Ethical practice and confidentiality
Trust is the working material of family medicine. The Association promotes ethical conduct and the strict protection of patient information.
4. Continuity of care
The Association upholds the long-term doctor–patient relationship as the distinguishing strength of family medicine, and encourages practice arrangements that protect it.
5. Public understanding
Many patients are unclear about what a family doctor does. The Association explains the role of the family physician to patients and the wider public.
6. Representation of the discipline
The Association speaks for family medicine as a distinct field of care, and for the doctors who practise it independently.
Scope and Limits
The Association is a professional membership body. It does not provide medical treatment, does not issue medical licences, and does not act as a regulator. Clinical responsibility rests with each individual practitioner and the authority that licences them.
Questions about the Association's mission may be sent to info@privatefamilydoctors.cloud.