What are Primary Care Networks?
On 1 July 2019, GP practices across England began working with other practices in their local area in groups called Primary Care Networks (PCNs).
PCNs were announced as part of NHS England’s Long Term Plan in January 2019. They have been put in place to improve and extend the range of services that are available in the community and join up the care that is provided from different organisations.
Demand for health and care services is increasing as the population ages. At the heart of our plans to make Primary Care services stronger, general practices are planning and delivering care together in partnership with other health and care services to support their populations by providing high-quality care. It is expected that by practices working together with a range of local providers, including community services, social care and the voluntary sector, they will be able to make resources go further.
In Warrington and we have five PCNs covering the whole patient population. Each PCN is made up of populations between roughly 30,000 to 50,000, although some have slightly more or fewer patients than that. PCNs offer care on a scale which is small enough for patients to get the continuous and personalised care they value, but large enough to be resilient through working in partnership with others in the local health and care system.
Each PCN has agreed their own health priorities based on what local people need. Longer term, we will be able to work together to recruit more staff such as pharmacists and physiotherapists and offer a broader range of services to patients across groups of practices.
Primary Care Networks (PCNs) are expected to bring several benefits to both patients and practices:
Patients will:
- access a wider range of professionals and diagnostics in the community
- access different ways of getting advice and treatment, including digital, telephone-based and physical services, matched to their individual needs
- see an increased focus on prevention and personalised care
- see a wider range of services close to home.
Practice staff will:
- experience a greater resilience by sharing resources, improved efficiency and smoothing out fluctuations in demand and capacity
- see a more sustainable work/life balance: more tasks routed directly to appropriate professionals
- experience more satisfying work: each professional focusing on the tasks they do best
- have greater influence on decisions made elsewhere in the health system
- be able to free up GP time to concentrate on patients with more complex needs
- have the opportunity to work more closely with other practices, especially GPs, having access to larger peer groups of clinicians, supporting their development and building greater resilience
- have access to better data about patient needs and outcomes.
East Warrington is made up of 3 GP practices with a population of around 33,000 patients.
Our 3 GP Practices are:
- Birchwood Medical Centre
- Fearnhead Medical Centre
- Padgate Medical Centre