Northamptonshire Rural PCN is a collaboration between five practices serving a rural population. We pride ourselves in providing high quality patient care to our patients, which is reflected in consistently high achievement in both patient satisfaction and other care quality indicators. Working together in the PCN brings additional funding and staffing to practices, particularly for ‘additional roles’ staff. This includes social prescribers, clinical pharmacists, paramedics, physiotherapists, podiatrists, care coordinators, and nurse associates. We also have an active ‘Age Well’ team who help support frail elderly patients living in their own homes.

Additional roles staff working in the PCN are all directly employed by a member practice and are entitled to NHS Pension and are encouraged to be part of the practice team.

The PCN has a Clinical Director who is a GP partner from a member practice, a PCN manager and PCN administrator who all work closely with member practices to bring services to patients and deliver the terms of the PCN contract. The PCN board includes practice managers and GP partners from each member practice as well as the Clinical Director, PCN manager and PCN administrator. We meet monthly in addition to arranging quarterly training sessions for practice staff.

This has built a strong sense of collaboration between practices. Our additional roles staff also work collaboratively across practices, our clinical pharmacists meet monthly as a team for educational meetings. Multidisciplinary learning is encouraged and recent educational events include a primary care update afternoon from Red Whale which included GPs, nurses, as well as our additional roles team.

Our vision for the PCN is to:

• Provide high quality, locally delivered services to meet the needs of our patient population.
• Maintain a motivated and highly skilled multidisciplinary workforce.
• Maintain pride and identity of individual practices while working together at PCN level to improve services and learn from each other.
• Ensure all practices deliver high quality care to their patients and are supported by the PCN to share expertise, staff and services where appropriate.
• Maintain continuity of care with services delivered in practices local to the patient. This will be supported by additional online or telephone resources to boost capacity but maintain accessibility without the need for patients to travel long distances.

Dr Julia Railson, Clinical Director Northamptonshire Rural PCN June 2021 – current.

Read the Northamptonshire Rural PCN Clinical Strategy