The GP Care Group is featured in this month’s Pulse PCN the magazine for general practice and primary care networks. Joint Chief Executives Tracy Cannell and Chris Banks discuss how our local PCNs make Tower Hamlets a leading light in primary care innovation, and what the organisations future hopes are.
“Unfortunately, there is no mention of federations and working at scale in national policy plans. Our federation has delivered major benefits including online access to all our practices and face-to-face care 24/7. We offer one of England’s best performing 0–19-year-old services. We have set up social prescribing, acute phlebotomy, and a virtual Covid ward caring for 260 patients at a time. The federation has also reduced urgent care costs by more than £1m, reduced estate and IT costs by 55%, and reduced pre-Covid staff sickness from 10% to less than 3%.
Primary care still struggles to be heard as loudly as large trusts in many local systems. Having a GP federation of all PCNs and practices has helped us achieve this. It also lets us deliver at scale on behalf of all PCNs where appropriate, reducing duplication and achieving more, faster because of the focused and experienced management support that is not available at a PCN level.”
