Bringing huge experience from nine years with NHS Employers working on tough issues such as the national GP contract and discussions with community pharmacy, we welcome Caroline Temmink who joins the Regional team as interim Head of Primary Care, leading the regional Primary Care programme.

Caroline tells us a little more about her new role, discusses the priorities and how the Primary Care Programme team will work at both a regional level and across the local DCO offices.

“This is a really exciting 12-month contract for me – I join the programme from NHS Employers, but I’ve also just completed a five-month secondment with Ros Roughton’s national Primary Care programme team, so this is a great opportunity to get that bit closer to delivery and to really help drive the improvements in primary care that we all want to see.”

The Primary Care programme is one of NHS England’s four top priorities set out in the Five Year Forward View Next Steps document.  At a regional level, Felicity Cox, the Director of Commissioning Operations (DCO) for the South East local office is the Senior Responsible Officer.  Caroline will now lead the programme team which consists of Sara Brown, Programme Manager, Sarah Kahn – Transformation Manager, Kiran Kaur – Project Lead and Victoria Forestiero – Senior Programme Administrator.

“My role will be to ensure we have the right oversight across the whole South region, establishing a stronger Programme Management Office (PMO) and continuing to working closely with all our colleagues in local office Primary Care teams. 

The General Practice Forward View (GPFV) is the national strategy which describes how NHS England will transform primary care, as part of the overarching Five Year Forward View.   It sets out four key areas of work:

• Developing the Primary Care workforce
• Reducing workload
• Investing in estates and infrastructure
• Redesigning care

“We have recently moved the programme into the Assurance and Delivery Directorate – which gives us some great opportunities to develop our work not in a silo, but to work closely with the wider STP agenda and also the Urgent & Emergency Care programme.  With a real focus on increasing access to GPs – making it easier for all of our patients across the region to get an appointment and receive the right care – and the need to see greater integration of primary care into other services, such as urgent care, these links will be important.

“We are working now to further develop our regional programme structure, working really closely with our local office Primary Care teams and I am really looking forward to making an impact. 

“It is a hugely exciting time to be involved in primary care – there is big investment – an additional £2.4bn a year by 2020 nationally and a real need to make some positive changes in primary care, which is the front door to the NHS for the majority of patients – this is why we have to get it right.”

As part of the development of primary care in the South region, patients across the South will benefit from increased numbers of Clinical Pharmacists working in GP practices. This is just one part of how the General Practice Forward View is driving improvements across the South.