Primary care home is an innovative approach to strengthening and redesigning primary care.

Developed by the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC), the model brings together a range of health and social care professionals to work together to provide enhanced personalised and preventative care for their local community.

Staff come together as a complete care community – drawn from GP surgeries, community, mental health and acute trusts, social care and the voluntary sector – to focus on local population needs and provide care closer to patients’ homes.

Primary care home shares some of the features of the multispecialty community provider (MCP) – its focus is on a smaller population enabling primary care transformation to happen at a fast pace, either on its own or as a foundation for larger models.

NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens launched the primary care home programme in October 2015. Supported by the new care models programme, 15 rapid test sites were chosen in December 2015. The programme has since expanded to more than 200 sites across England, serving nine million patients, 16% of the population. The sites have come together as a community of practice to develop and test the model.

Four key characteristics make up the primary care home:

• an integrated workforce, with a strong focus on partnerships spanning primary, secondary and social care;
• a combined focus on personalisation of care with improvements in population health outcomes;
• provision of care to a defined, registered population of between 30,000 and 50,000.

For further information about the primary care home model email napc@napc.co.uk, or visit the national association of primary care website. You can also follow them on Twitter.