PCN of the Year 2024 Award winner announced

A Merseyside-based PCN has been named PCN of the Year at the 2024 GP Awards on Friday (6 December).

South Sefton PCN was recognised at the awards ceremony for its use of collaboration to improve care across its network.

The PCN, which includes 19 practices, has a vision to enable patients to live longer, healthier lives by being at the heart of their ICS. It focuses on collaboration and partnership working to deliver joined-up services, expanded primary care workforce and working at scale.

Clinical director, Dr Craig Gillespie, said: ‘‘It feels absolutely amazing to win this award. I wasn’t very confident we would win it because everyone has done so well – I read some of the write-ups and it was stiff competition!’

On what achievement he was most proud of his team for, he said: ‘The thing that stands out the most for me is how ‘together’ we are – all the practices are together and we all work together to achieve the same things. That’s the strength. There are so many people that have worked so hard to do so many things led by Rachel. It is a real team effort.’

Strategic PCN manager, Rachel Stead, added that their success was about ‘partnership’.

‘We have got an amazing staff team, really supportive general practice and the wider system,’ she said.

‘We have great relationships with commissioners, the voluntary sector and other health care providers. I think that relationship and the partnership is what has enabled us to do so many of the things we have attempted to do – such as the ACES programme and the respiratory hub. It is really all about partnership.’

Read more about South Sefton’s award-winning care here.

The GP Awards are run by Pulse PCN’s publisher Cogora. The award was sponsored by medi2data.