PCN of the Year Award winner for 2023 announced

A Cheltenham PCN was named PCN of the Year at the 2023 GP Awards.

Central Cheltenham PCN was recognised at the awards ceremony – which took place in London on Friday (8 December) – for its novel use of ARRS staff and connections to its VSCE partners.

Dr Olesya Atkinson, a GP and clinical director for the PCN, said: ‘I am absolutely delighted that our collective team efforts have been recognised and validated by national standards of excellence.

‘I believe that the success of our PCN is determined by the clear shared vision based on data, the drive to provide the best possible care for our population, being professionally curious and enabled by strong collaboration within the whole PCN team, management, training and supervision structure.’

Among its achievements, the PCN developed a novel PCN Lead Nurse role intended to support nurses across all PCN practices, standardise clinical protocol and enable better peer networking.

In the community, the PCN works with local schools and has established a population health management (PHM) project to identify children and young people at risk of future negative health consequences, in order to offer proactive interventions.

In an op-ed written for Pulse PCN, Dr Atkinson highlighted that the project had been captured as best practice by the NHSE PHM team, with more than 50 children now receiving tailored care to help prevent long-term mental health problems.

The PCN’s social prescribing link worker works with these children, offering six-week face-to-face courses on mental health resilience, including personalised support with issues such as anxiety or educational difficulties.

The GP Awards are run by Pulse PCN’s publisher Cogora.