All PCNs to benefit from demand and capacity pilots

All PCNs are to benefit from the demand and capacity test site pilot data during the programme, according to NHS England.

It comes as the 22 PCN test sites involved have been revealed in a document seen by Pulse (see table below).

The pilot scheme, announced in May, is running across seven ICBs, with PCNs gathering data during the next three years in order to understand whether interventions can make a difference to capacity in primary care.

Pulse PCN previously reported that those taking part could get up to £1.5m in additional funding.

However, all PCNs are still set to benefit from the pilot ‘throughout the life of the programme’, according to the NHS England document.

It said: ‘Learnings will be disseminated widely throughout the life of the Programme to support those who are not taking part in the Programme. Shared data will be anonymised or pseudonymised (e.g. PCNs labelled A to O). No identifiable staff or patient data will be shared. NHSE and the ICBs will decide how best to capture and disseminate the overall Programme conclusions before the Programme ends in March 2027.’

Dr Tom Holdsworth, clinical director of Townships 1 PCN, said: ‘We are very excited to be involved. We haven’t worked out all the detail of what we plan to do but we may well build on the work we have done already on proactive care and frailty as well as boosting the amount of GP, nurse and pharmacy sessions in practices. 

‘There seems to be no pre-conceived idea of what constitutes success. There is interest in seeing what happens to capacity, demand, quality, patient and staff satisfaction.’

Karen Creffield, PCN manager at Frome PCN, added that is was an ‘easy decision’ for them to put their name forward for the programme, and that the funding felt ‘generous’.

‘I’m genuinely excited about the possibilities. General practice is under huge amounts of pressure and what I really appreciated was to be able to explore some of those areas where we could make improvements in ways that we haven’t before,’ she said.

‘I hope some of the things we discover will make a difference in our home county but also more widely.’

She added: ‘As a PCN we would like to be able to offer more provision for mental health and long term condition support and explore how we can improve the interface between primary and secondary care.

‘I’m also really excited about the possibility of using more digital tools to make us more efficient and effective,’ she added.

On further analysis of the chosen sites, Pulse PCN can reveal that across the 22 PCNs, there are around 80 practices with a range of population sizes.

The largest PCNs taking part are Barnet 3 PCN in North Central London ICB and IMP PCN in Lincolnshire, according to Pulse PCN’s analysis of NHS England monthly practice data.

Waiting times for appointments with any staff range from an average of two days at Squires Lane Medical Practice in Barnet 3 PCN in North Central London to 12 days at The Thorpe Practice in Townships 1 PCN in South Yorkshire.

The average index of multiple deprivation score of the practices’ populations is also wide ranging, from 1.4 at White House Surgery in GPA1 PCN in South Yorkshire, to 8.3 at Tollerton Surgery in South Hambleton and Ryedale PCN in Humber and North Yorkshire.

In its programme document, NHS England said at the heart of the plan was ‘a standardised approach that uses digital tools to support triage of requests based on clinical need’ and that the pilot will ‘gather insights on this’.

It said: ‘In practices that have adopted this model, patients have the choice to contact them online, by phone or in person. There are efficiencies in this model.

‘But do these practices now have the capacity to deliver all the proactive and preventative care we ask of them, achieve good levels of care continuity for those who would benefit the most, or be able to lead or contribute to neighbourhood working? If not, what resource is needed?

‘And do patients report positive experiences and staff feel the model is sustainable for them? This programme aims to help answer these questions.

‘The seven ICBs will work with 22 PCN test sites, covering around 1 million patients, to generate the necessary data insights.’

NHS England added that the programme will begin by establishing a ‘clear data baseline’, as part of a before and after approach to test out the changes.

In particular, the pilot will involve:

• ICBs working through the variations in direct and indirect spend on primary care services to ‘understand the impact’ on overall general practice income, capacity and workload
• PCN test sites conducting three separate audit weeks of ‘intensive’ data collection at the practice and PCN level
• Gathering of system performance data – data on the activity of 111 calls, A&E attendance and Pharmacy First and requests through referral activity
• PCN test sites sharing data on the total income and costs for the PCN and each practice, and the proportion focused on GMS/PMS/APMS and PCN DES delivery.

After the baseline has been established, the PCNs will develop changes that they want to test and measure the impact across five possible areas (see box), and these will then discussed at a workshop in December.

This story was updated on 30/9/24 due to duplications in NHS England practice data.