General practice continues to sit at the heart of our NHS. It has pioneered the use of technology to deliver safe and effective care and has adapted to the needs of our growing and ageing population. The past few years have been some of the most challenging faced by general practice professionals in an ever-changing landscape. Caring for patients digitally has become a reality and our programme has accumulated materials to support practices deliver digital tools further enabling patients to get the right access when needed.

This work underpins the ambitions of the 10 year plan that is designed,  amongst other things, to ensure that primary care is more accessible, efficient, and patient-centred, ultimately improving the overall quality of care for our population in the South East region.

The NHS England South East Primary Care Transformation programme team works with six Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), and more than 200 Primary Care Networks (PCNs) across the South East to help transform the way patients access and receive primary care services.

In addition to this, the programme has expanded and has oversight for the discharge of the ICB delegated functions including pharmacy, optometry and dentistry functions under the Health and Care Act 2022. The programme aims to work with colleagues across the region to ensure ICBs are exercising the delegated primary care functions safely, effectively and consistently within legislation and statutory guidance.

A huge amount of guidance material has been produced to support the primary care workforce with this transition, but sometimes the challenge is finding what you need across the multiple sources available. This website aims to make that easier by bringing together materials in one place to support practices and save time; all the links have approved content from the listed organisations and regular review and updates will be provided.

Building partnerships and learning to work in collaboration at scale reduces the risks to practices working at capacity, supporting them to better respond to the workload pressures that are widely recognised. To support and increase practice access and deliver services at scale, the Digital Innovation Programme published a NHS England  Primary Care Network  (PCN) Hub Pilot  blueprint document and other learning resources based on a regional project to boost appointment capacity through federated delivery of services utilising sustainable funding streams. In doing this, the PCN in Kent and Medway created a new PCN hub operating model which has added 4,500 appointments for patients per month, supporting its seven practices. Materials have been developed to help others looking to work in this way no matter their delivery model and scale of services. Please watch an introductory video here and a podcast produced here.

Alongside these resources, we recommend teams register for access to the National Futures Primary Care Hub  and the South East Region Primary Care Transformation Futures site, which continue to share up to date advice and guidance and offers the opportunity to share challenges and best practice with colleagues on their members forum. You can request free access via the link here.

If you have any feedback on how this platform can be improved, we’d love to hear any suggestions and would welcome sharing of any good practice taking place in your area. The team can be reached at england.seprimarycaretransformationteam@nhs.net

Here you will find an animation that offers a great example of how an ICB across the region is securing their future workforce.

As well as how others are developing their integrated neighbourhood teams.

Next page: Modern General Practice Overview