What is a Primary Care Network?
A Primary Care Network (PCN) is an alliance of GP surgeries that work collaboratively with other health, social care and voluntary organisations to improve patient services. Primary care networks (PCNs) build on the core work of current primary care services.
There are approximately 1,250 primary care networks across England.
Why is this important
As a network, your PCN has more ownership to introduce new roles to support patient care and the existing general practice team. It includes Advance Nurse Practitioners (ANP), pharmacists, Pharmacy technicians, physiotherapists, Mental Health practitioners (MHP), Social prescribers, GP Assistants and Care coordinators.
PCNs play a vital role in developing integrated care systems (ICSs) and meeting the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan.
What Primary Care Network does your surgery belong to?
We are the West One PCN.
Collectively, your PCN practices have a population of 57 536 patients.
There are 7 practices currently active in our PCN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W19DtEsc8Ys&t=3s
Watch the video above to learn more about how Primary Care Networks work. You might find The future of the NHS and how things are changing video by The Kings Fund very helpful.
Meet the Team
Your Primary Care Network teams are a dedicated group of clinicians and health and care professionals committed to better health and well-being in the community. Some of us are part of member GP practices, whilst others work directly for the Primary Care Network.
Dr Sharma Shanika
Clinical Director, Network West One PCN, Barking and Dagenham
Dimitri Bakanov
PCN Business Manager - West One Digital and Transformation Lead
Other members of our PCN team
Dr Francis Adonna and Dr Rai Kanika
PCN Health Inequality (HI) Leads
Dr Parkar Nahida & Niroshan Gobalan
PCN Demand, Capacity and Access Leads
First Contact Physiotherapist
- Vani Vijayan
- Shweta Randhir
- Nachiket Kisode
Clinical Pharmacist
- Gurpreet Dhinjan
- Viren Amratal
Social Prescribing Link Worker
Mental Health Practitioner (MHP)
- Phebe Hinson (Children MHP)
- Sanjeev Maulloo (Adult MHP)
Care Coordinator
- Nishanthi Ratnayake
- Nargis Malik
ARRS roles that the PCN supports
These are trained professionals other than your GP who can help you with your health and wellbeing.
Sometimes it is not important to only see your GP and these professionals can help.
First Contact Practitioners (Physiotherapy)
First Contact Practitioners are expert musculoskeletal (MSK) clinicians with a background in physiotherapy. We have introduced this role to reduce the workload on GPs and ensure your wait for an appointment is reduced.
By making it easier for patients to access physiotherapists, patients will have quicker access to diagnosis and treatment. This will help them manage their conditions more effectively and recover faster, so they can return to everyday life quickly. They will help GPs to manage their workload more effectively and reduce the need for onward referrals.
Clinical Pharmacists
The Clinical Pharmacist will work within their competencies to:
- Increase safety and quality of prescribed medicines.
- Provide support on medicine related issues to the whole practice team.
- Be a point of contact for patients regarding medication queries.
- Support medication reviews.
Care Co-ordinators
Care co-ordinators help to co-ordinate and navigate care across the health and care system, helping people make the right connections, with the right teams at the right time. They can support people to become more active in their own health and care and are skilled in assessing people’s changing needs. Care co-ordinators are effective in bringing together multidisciplinary teams to support people’s complex.
This diagram shows the different types of support provided by social prescribing link workers, care co-ordinators and health and wellbeing coaches, and how they work together as a team.
Social Prescribers
They enable GPs, nurses, and other primary care professionals to help patients with a range of local, non-clinical services.
Recognising that people’s health is determined primarily by a range of social, economic and environmental factors, social prescribing seeks to address people’s needs holistically. It also aims to support individuals to take greater control of their health.
Social prescribing schemes can involve various activities typically provided by voluntary and community sector organisations.
They can help with smoking, healthy living, etc.