The support on offer for patients at their GP practice is expanding across the South East, thanks to thousands more healthcare staff working in local communities and the new GP access recovery plan.

Nearly 4,000 additional staff have been recruited into healthcare roles at general practices in the South East since 2019 – meaning an expanded team of health professionals are now available to help patients get the right care when they need it, in addition to seeing their GP or practice nurse.

From today, the NHS is raising awareness of the support available with community health teams, including pharmacists, mental health practitioners, paramedics, physios, and social prescribers now available in every part of the country.

Record numbers of people are seeking support from their family doctors but with one in five GP appointments for non-medical reasons such as loneliness or seeking advice on housing or debts, the NHS wants to make sure that the right help is available.

A patient can always see their GP, but the NHS is training more than 7,500 staff to better assess patients’ needs when they first contact their practice so they can be seen by the right health professional. For example, if a patient has muscular pain, they will be booked straight into see a physiotherapist.

Tim Caroe, Medical Director, Primary Care Transformation Primary Care Transformation Programme – NHS England South East Region said: “Record numbers of people are seeking support from their GP practice, with teams treating half a million more patients a week compared to before the pandemic, and this demand is only going to increase with an ageing population so the NHS must adapt its services to match this need.

“Whilst we want to support people to see their family doctor when they need to, the NHS is giving people more options with nearly 4,000 new staff working in General Practice in the South East since 2019 meaning patients can get specialist support from mental health professionals, physios, and pharmacists without needing to see a GP first.”

Public awareness of the range of support remains low. Although 59% of people in the South East said they were confident at identifying the roles available, they didn’t know that mental health practitioners (59%)  physiotherapists (63%) or social prescribers (89%) could be found at a general practice.

And more than 73% of people surveyed said they were happy to receive care from another health worker, recognising they didn’t always need to see a GP.

To help explain the support available in the community, a new film has been released by NHS England today, which sees three curious children go behind the scenes at a general practice to meet some of these professionals and learn more about how they help patients get the care they need.

Dr. Bharan Kumar – Clinical Director, SHAPE Primary Care Network, Bharani Group Practices shares how the multi disciplinary team within his practice has been making a real difference to patients with high blood pressure.

“We recognised that our services needed to change to meet the needs of our patients, especially those living with long term conditions like Hypertension (high blood pressure). We adapted our ways of working, brought new clinicians and team members on board and utilised new technologies to support our work.

A key member of the team for this particular trial was Sagar Patel, our Clinical Pharmacist based within the surgery. Sagar reached out to patients living with high blood pressure and diabetes inviting them to carry out a home blood pressure check or encouraging them to visit a community pharmacy to take their reading if they needed support in doing so. The patient then sent their readings to us via text message, and these were entered into the patients records for review.”

Sagar told us “I am able to easily see patient’s blood pressure readings and follow up with them if their readings appear high, discussing with them changes they can make to diet and activity levels and put a treatment plan in place. In my role I can spend more time with the patients, discussing with them any concerns they may have or answering questions around their medications.  I find patients are enthusiastic about this approach. They don’t need to call the surgery; it saves them time and they feel more in control of keeping themselves well.”

Patient Surinder Ruprai has benefited from the general practice team in place supporting this initiative. Surinder told us ” This is such a great idea. When you have people like me who lead very busy lives it is one less thing to worry about. I don’t need to be on the phone trying to make an appointment and I know if there is an issue I will receive a text or call back from Sagar at the surgery.”

Dr Kumar concluded ” This approach has enabled us to demonstrate that it is possible to achieve consistently high positive outcomes for patients and staff, reducing health inequalities and most importantly improving the patient experience. In our journey we have managed to go from the lowest outcomes for those living with high blood pressure to becoming the highest performing primary care network in our area.”

TV doctor and NHS GP, Dr Ellie Cannon is also supporting the NHS campaign and, said: “As a GP, it’s so helpful to have a range of health professionals on hand at my general practice, as it means my patients benefit from a team of specialists that can help them in many different ways.

“Whether it’s mental health support or help with vaccinations or advice about their bones and joints, having more health professionals means that patients get the best possible care.

“Remember, by giving us more information about what you need help with when you contact your practice, we can get you the right care you need.”

The primary care plan published by NHS England and Government earlier this year committed to offering people more convenient options to seek care including options to self-refer for conditions such as physiotherapy, podiatry, and hearing tests without seeing a GP.