Since the NHS was created in 1948, the population has grown and people are living longer, often with long term conditions requiring access their local health services more often.
To meet these needs, GP practices are working together with community, mental health, social care, pharmacy, hospital and voluntary services in their local areas in groups of practices known as primary care networks (PCNs).
Here in rural West Suffolk, our primary care network is called Blackbourne PCN. It comprises of 4 GP practices – Woolpit Health Centre, Botesdale Health Centre, Ixworth Surgery and Stanton Surgery – and serves a population of over 40,000 patients. Dr Richard West is our Clinical Director.
PCNs build on existing primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated, specialised and more integrated health and social care for people close to home.
Working together means that we can:
- benefit from working at scale by sharing resources, expertise and services;
- improve and increase access, the range of services and specialist staff available to patients at a local level;
- facilitate better communication and collaboration between primary care and the wider community services;
- better manage pressures on finances, resources and estates;
- work to a common goal to address health inequalities – increasing vaccination and screening uptake;
- enhance the health and wellbeing of the local population.