"Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity."

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. 

In order to meet these needs, practices are working together with communities, mental health, social care, pharmacy, hospital and voluntary services in their local areas in groups of practices known as primary care networks (PCNs).

By GP surgeries working together and building on existing primary care services this enables a greater provision of proactive and more integrated health and social care for people. As a patient you will be able to access a greater range of services that is more integrated into your community.  

Being part of a PCN enables practices to work at scale and improves the ability of the surgery to recruit and retain staff; manage financial and estates pressures; provide a wider range of services to patients; integrate with the broader health and care system. In addition, PCN funding allows the recruitment of a more diverse skill mix into general practice, such as first contact physiotherapists, social prescribers, and physician assistants. 

 The core characteristics of a Primary Care Network (PCN) are: 

•  Practices working together and with other local health and care  providers, around natural local communities that geographically make  sense, to provide coordinated care through integrated teams 
•  Typically a defined patient population of at least 30,000 and tend  not to exceed 50,000 
•  Providing care in different ways to match different people’s  needs, including flexible access to advice and support for ‘healthier’  sections of the population, and joined up care for those with complex  conditions 
•  Focus on prevention and personalised care, supporting patients to  make informed decisions about their care and look after their own  health, by connecting them with the full range of statutory and voluntary  services  
•  Use of data and technology to assess population health needs and  health inequalities; to inform, design and deliver practice and  populations scale care models; support clinical decision making, and  monitor performance and variation to inform continuous service  improvement 
•  Making best use of collective resources across practices and other  local health and care providers to allow greater resilience, more  sustainable workload and access to a larger range of professional  groups. 

Primary Care Networks (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.

Each of the 1,250 PCNs across England are based on GP registered patient lists, typically serving natural communities of between 30,000 to 50,000 people (with some flexibility). They 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. Over 99% of general practices are part of a PCN.

 The core characteristics of a Primary Care Network (PCN) are: 

•  Practices working together and with other local health and care  providers, around natural local communities that geographically make  sense, to provide coordinated care through integrated teams 
•  Typically a defined patient population of at least 30,000 and tend  not to exceed 50,000 
•  Providing care in different ways to match different people’s  needs, including flexible access to advice and support for ‘healthier’  sections of the population, and joined up care for those with complex  conditions 
•  Focus on prevention and personalised care, supporting patients to  make informed decisions about their care and look after their own  health, by connecting them with the full range of statutory and voluntary  services  
•  Use of data and technology to assess population health needs and  health inequalities; to inform, design and deliver practice and  populations scale care models; support clinical decision making, and  monitor performance and variation to inform continuous service  improvement 
•  Making best use of collective resources across practices and other  local health and care providers to allow greater resilience, more  sustainable workload and access to a larger range of professional  groups.