Primary Care Networks (PCN)
Greengate Medical Centre is part of the Watermead PCN.
Watermead PCN consists of 4 practice working collaboratively, Birstall Medical Centre, Thurmaston Health Centre, Silverdale Medical Centre and Greengate.
What are Primary Care Networks?
Primary Care Networks are a key building block of the NHS long Term Plan, bringing general practices together to work at scale and focus on delivery; to provide a wider range of services to patients in a coordinated way across natural communities. This includes social care, health, community and voluntary services and integrated advice and guidance services. The Networks aim to easily integrate with the wider health and care system and improve the ability of practices to recruit and retain staff.
What will primary care networks do?
- Primary care networks will be funded to provide a wider range of primary care services to patients, involving a broader set of staff roles, which includes Pharmacists and Social Prescribers (when a healthcare professional refers patients to support in the community, in order to improve their health and wellbeing) followed by Physicians Associates, Physiotherapists and Paramedics in following years.
- Extended access to primary care services available across the Network of practices.
- Primary Care Networks will also be expected to think about the wider health of their population, taking a proactive approach to managing population health and, from 2020/21, assessing the needs of their local population to identify people who would benefit from targeted, proactive support.
- Primary Care Networks will be focused on delivering services, rather than on the planning and funding of services, responsibility for which will remain with the CCG.
Shivani – Clinical Pharmacist (f)
Clinical pharmacists work in primary care as part of a multidisciplinary team in a patient facing role to clinically assess and treat patients using expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas. They work with and alongside the general practice team, taking responsibility for patients with chronic diseases and undertaking clinical medication reviews to proactively manage people with complex medication use, especially for the elderly, people in care homes and those with multiple conditions.
Find out more about clinical pharmacists in general practice.
Laura - Clinical Practitioner (f)
First Contact Physiotherapists (FCP) are qualified independent clinical practitioners who can assess, diagnose, treat, and manage musculoskeletal (MSK) problems and undifferentiated conditions and, where appropriate, discharge a person without a medical referral. FCPs working in this role can be accessed directly by patients, or staff in GP practices can refer patients to them to establish a rapid and accurate diagnosis and management plan to streamline pathways of care.
Find out more about first contact physiotherapists.
Harpreet Kaur - Physician Associate (f)
Physician associates are healthcare professionals with a generalist medical education, who work alongside doctors providing medical care as an integral part of the multidisciplinary team. Physician associates are dependent practitioners who work under the supervision of a fully trained and experienced doctor. They bring new talent and add to the skill mix within teams, providing a stable, generalist section of the workforce which can help ease the workforce pressures that primary care currently faces.
More information about the role of a physician’s associate is available on the Health Education England website.
Mary - Social Prescriber (f)
Social Prescribing Link Workers give people time and focus on what matters to the person as identified in their care and support plan. They connect people to community groups and agencies for practical and emotional support and offer a holistic approach to health and wellbeing, hence the name ‘social prescribing’.
Social prescribing enables patients referred by general practice, pharmacies, multi-disciplinary teams, hospital discharge teams, allied health professionals, fire service, police, job centres, social care services, housing associations and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations get the right care for them.
Link workers typically work with people over 6-12 contacts (including phone calls and face to face meetings) over a three-month period with a typical caseload of up to 250 people, depending on the complexity of people’s needs.
More information about social prescribing can be found in the personalised care section of our website.