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Primary mental healthcare: a scoping review392of these collaborative (mental) healthcare services for persons with ID. 117Preconditions for collaborative care, as listed in Box 1, are also recognised in elderly and chronic disease care. 118-120 All these disciplines mention adequate reimbursement as a critical barrier to successful collaboration, and reimbursement needs to be prioritised. Additionally, collaboration is more effective when there is a team vision, shared goals, formal quality processes, and shared ICT information systems. 118, 120 Research in elderly care has revealed that GPs are indispensable in multidisciplinary teams regarding networking activities, integration of care, and showing leadership; the researchers stress that GPs should be made more aware of this, for instance in GP training programmes. 121Finally, the results of this review stress the importance of the GP collaborating with caregivers. Remarkably, none of the included publications focused on patients’ needs in their contact with the GP, although research shows that people with ID prefer to be less reliant on caregivers in GP consultation and argue for an improvement of the accessibility of health services. 13, 122, 123 The UK NICE guideline ‘Mental health problems in people with learning disabilities: prevention, assessment and management’ gives special attention to the involvement of people with ID and their caregivers in organizing their care. In addition, this guideline covers MH care in a holistic way in different UK settings, and may serve as an example for other countries. 124Implications for research and/or practiceImprovement of care for patients with both ID and MHD needs to be prioritised, justified by the limited quality of care and the substantial size of this patient group. This improvement cannot be achieved by GPs and their collaborative partners alone. It requires adaptations on both the organisational and the political level. However, it remains important to actively engage GPs to ensure that suggested strategies are applicable and feasible in daily practice.Diverse improvement strategies are advisable. Firstly, it is important to invest in effective, frequently recurring post-curriculum training programmes for GPs, focusing on more awareness of this patient group, specific knowledge gaps regarding IDs and MHDs, existing tools and Katrien Pouls sHL.indd 39 24-06-2024 16:26