Primary Care Network Information

What is a PCN

Since the NHS was created in 1948, the population has grown and people are living longer. Many people are living with long term conditions such as diabetes and heart disease or suffer with mental health issues and may need to 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).

PCNs build on the core of current primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care. Clinicians describe this as a change from reactively providing appointments to proactively care for the people and communities they serve. Where emerging PCNs are in place in parts of the country, there are clear benefits for patients and clinicians.

PCNs are small enough to provide the personal care valued by both people and GPs, but large enough to have impact and economies of scale through better collaboration between GP practices and others in the local health and social care system.

PCNs are led by clinical directors who may be a GP, general practice nurse, clinical pharmacist or other clinical profession working in general practice.

We want to support patients to make informed decisions about their health care and to connect them to most appropriate health or social care provider to ensure health care that is timely safe and all encompassing.

Watch a short animation that explains the concept of PCNs and how this new way of working enables health and other services to work together to provide better access for patients.

PCN Team

Services in general practice and the community are being transformed to make it easier for you to access a wider range of help from your surgery. This is part of the NHS Long Term Plan to offer people further choice and more joined-up healthcare. 

More healthcare professionals including Clinical Pharmacists, Physiotherapists, Paramedics, Physician Associates, Dieticians, Health and Wellbeing Coaches, and Social Prescribing Link Workers are being recruited nationally to work alongside GPs in wider networks of practices. This means you will be able to access more services closer to home.

Care Coordinators

Care Coordinators working in practice reception teams are specially trained to know about the care and services available to you at your surgery and in your area. 

They can help you:

• Get seen as soon as possible
• Know whether self-referral is available for certain services at your practice or in your area
• Make appointments for new kinds of care or new services you may not be aware of
• Access the appropriate healthcare professional

Hayley Moran

Care Coordinator

Jodie Sweeney

Care Coordinator

Katie Cheerie

Care Coordinator

Lauren King

Senior Care Coordinator

Clinical Pharmacists

The Primary Care Network would like to welcome the clinical pharmacists, who are an extension to the clinical team. Hitesh Tara started in late 2019 and the newest addition, Rajveer Kaur, commenced her role in late 2020.

The clinical pharmacists are engaged in multiple activities and you will most likely interact with them in the form of a medication review. In these reviews, they will ensure the appropriate blood tests and monitoring has been completed for your medication and review your current medication for appropriateness. This is your chance as a patient to have an in-depth discussion about your medication and any questions or concerns. They have a strong relationship with your GP and any suggestions for your care will be as a multi-disciplinary approach.

Both the clinical pharmacists are part of a nationwide training program for clinical pharmacists in general practice. Towards the end of this pathway, they will look into specialising in a clinical area for long term management of care. Hitesh currently has an interest in anticoagulation (blood-thinning) and Rajveer is yet to choose her area to upskill in. Both Hitesh and Raj look forward to hearing your feedback to their newly appointed roles in the practice, which will form part of their training.

Hitesh Tare

Clinical Pharmacist

Muhammad Hassain

Clinical Pharmacist

Muhammed Hassain

Clinical Pharmacist

Mohammed Rahman

Clinical Pharmacist

Muhammed Arshad

Kulwinder Dhadli

Pharmacy Technician

Social Prescribers

The basic principal of our service is to recognise that primarily a range of social, economic and environmental factors determines people’s health. Social Link Working seeks to support people to address their own needs and aims to support individuals to take greater control of their own health. Social Prescribing can also help to connect people to community groups and statutory services for practical and emotional support.  

How can Social Link Workers help patients?

The aim of this service is to help support patients and address their social needs.  Social Link Workers support in a non-medical way of working and can help with a variety of issues. This is an example of just some of the areas of work we deal with.

• Isolation and social support
• Benefits, debt and housing
• Low mood and wellbeing
• Management of long terms conditions. I.e. referring to Fitter futures for a healthier lifestyle, speaking to the Clinical Pharmacists regarding their medications, and learning to take care of their own wellbeing by giving them the tools to do so.
• By giving time to talk through issues and offering emotional support it helps people to understand the ‘bigger picture’. It helps to assist people to devise an action plan to work towards.

• Carers support
• Provision of services i.e. Adult Social Care, Equipment

Mandy Brophy

Social Prescriber

Amanda Jerma

Social Prescriber

Grace Cowell

Social Prescriber

Joanna Kennerley

Social Prescriber

Wellbeing Coaches

Warwickshire East PCN wants to work with local communities to work towards a healthier lifestyle and to empower people to make the right choices for their health care needs. This service is designed in a way to offer patients clinical and non-clinical services to support health and wellbeing in our community.

We will work to offer people a service that can offer benefits such as;

• Increased self-resilience in all aspects of their life
• Improvement in mental health
• Increased activity levels

The team will support patents to find resources in the community to help them feel better. 

• Service Aims
• Healthy lifestyle and behaviour change
• Build social links
• Healthy eating
• Understand food labelling
• Create an individual physical activity plan
• Learn how to plan ahead
• Become a volunteer
• Make New Friends
• Set individual weight management goals
• Improving Health Statistics

Ludmilla Enticott

Senior Health & Wellbeing Coach

Chelsea Loydal

Wellbeing Coach

Management

Liz Kelland

Digital and Transformation Lead

Raj Kanwar

Clinical Director