The NHS Long Term Plan and new GP contract set out requirements for GP practices to work together in Primary Care Networks (PCNs) covering registered populations of 30,000 to 50,000 patients. PCNs will enable the greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care. The groupings of PCNs in Bromley have been agreed by practices and eight have been established. Additional investment will be made to primary care to support this collaborative working and a new, more resilient model of general practice. The new contracts formalising these arrangements went live on 1 July 2019. The groupings and clinical leads for each of the Primary Care Networks are as follows:
Penge PCN
Clinical Director – Dr Alka Sharma
Highland Road SurgeryBeckenham PCN
Clinical Directors – Dr Peter Kerr and Dr Thuwaraga Logeswaran
HayesWick PCN
Clinical Director – Dr Jonathan Anthonypillai
Mid Bromley PCN
Clinical Directors – Dr Emma Ryan, Dr Marc Kay and Dr Natasha Hoare
MDC PCN
Clinical Directors – Dr Chris Fatoyinbo, Dr Michael Choong and Dr Viral Tanna
Five Elms PCN
Clinical Director - Taraq Waheed
Crays PCN
Clinical Directors – Dr Bushra Yousuf and Dr Ella Winstanley
Orpington PCN
Clinical Director - Babu Kangesan
As part of a PCN, GPs will be able to recruit multi-disciplinary teams, including pharmacists, physiotherapists, paramedics, physician associates and social prescribing support workers, freeing up family doctors to focus on the sickest patients. In the first year of the PCN contract, the focus will be on optimising current services across the network, such as the provision of extended opening hours for local practices and the development of clinical pharmacists and social prescribing link workers. It is expected that the capability and capacity of PCNs will build over the next 5 years of the contract to deliver fully integrated community-based care that meets the needs of our local populations.
More information on the numbers of PCNs in south east London is available here.