Primary Care Network

About Primary Care Networks

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).

Benefits of being part of a Primary Care Network

PCNs build on existing primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care for people close to home. Clinicians describe this as a change from reactively providing appointments to proactively caring for the people and communities they serve.

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

Childwall & Wavertree Primary Care Network

The new GP contract was published in early 2019 as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. A key element of the new contract is the development of Primary Care Networks (PCNs) which bring GP practices together with other local services – such as community, mental health, social care and the voluntary sector to look after local populations. PCNs help to join up services at a local level, focusing on the specific needs of these local populations, with patients still accessing routine GP appointments as they do now.

Learn more about the Childwall & Wavertree Primary Care Network