What is a Primary Care Network?
A primary care network consists of groups of general practices working together with a range of local providers, including across primary care, community services, social care and the voluntary sector, to offer more personalised, coordinated health and social care to their local populations. Networks would normally be based around natural local communities typically serving populations of at least 30,000 and not tending to exceed 50,000. They should be small enough to maintain the traditional strengths of general practice but at the same time large enough to provide resilience and support the development of integrated teams
The Vale of Evesham Primary Care Network is made up of seven practices:
Abbey Medical Practice
Bredon Hill Surgery
DeMontfort Medical Practice
Grey Gable Surgery
Merstow Green Medical Practice
New Barn Close Surgery
Riverside Surgery
Vale of Evesham PCN is committed to the development and delivery of coordinated healthcare, working with partner organisations to support patients in making informed decisions about their personal care – promoting health and wellbeing and ensuring equality of access for all.
¨ Patients first
¨ Respect and appreciation for all
¨ Commitment to quality patient care
¨ Encourage integrated working
¨ Improve access to care
¨ Promote & support health and wellbeing
¨ Build and delivery services that will benefit the local population
The PCN’s vision is to look at improving health outcomes for our local population by developing services based on their needs which will then be delivered locally. Ensuring that we reduce duplication and address any gaps in the services already available to our patients.
Primary care networks will provide proactive, coordinated care to their local populations, in different ways to match different people’s needs, with a strong focus on prevention and personalised care.
This means supporting patients to make informed decisions about their own health and care and connecting them to a wide range of statutory and voluntary services to ensure they can access the care they need first time. Networks will also have a greater focus on population health and addressing health inequalities in their local area, using data and technology to inform the delivery of population scale care models.
The core characteristics of a PCN:
- Practices working together and with other local health and care providers, around natural local communities that geographically make sense, to provide coordinated care through integrated teams
- Typically a defined patient population of at least 30,000 and tend not to exceed 50,000
- Providing care in different ways to match different people’s needs, including flexible access to advice and support for ‘healthier’ sections of the population, and joined up care for those with complex conditions
- Focus on prevention and personalised care, supporting patients to make informed decisions about their care and look after their own health, by connecting them with the full range of statutory and voluntary services
- Use of data and technology to assess population health needs and health inequalities; to inform, design and deliver practice and populations scale care models; support clinical decision making, and monitor performance and variation to inform continuous service improvement
- Making best use of collective resources across practices and other local health and care providers to allow greater resilience, more sustainable workload and access to a larger range of professional groups.
