About Us

What is a Primary Care Network?

A Primary Care Network (PCN) is a group of GP surgeries working together to focus on local patient care. By working as part of a PCN, your GP surgery can offer you more services by sharing resources and employing more staff. Your PCN’s medical and non-medical team works as part of your GP surgery to give you better access to healthcare and support.

PCNs also work closely with other health and social care services to offer more personalised care. Your named GP is still responsible for the overall care you receive.

Specialised health practitioners in the PCN can often see you for some health issues instead of a GP. This means you may be seen and access specialist care more quickly. It also helps to free up GP time to make more GP appointments available for patients who need them. Sometimes, the PCN team can help you avoid a going to hospital or staying in hospital if you don’t need to.

What is Hounslow Health Primary Care Network?

Hounslow Health Primary Care Network (PCN) consists of groups of general practices working together with a range of local providers, including across primary care, community services, social care and the voluntary sector, to offer more personalised, coordinated health and social care to their local populations. Hounslow Health PCN has a collective patient population of just over 90,000 and we believe we are optimally sized to enjoy the benefits of working at scale, whilst still being able to provide personalised care. We are small enough to maintain the traditional strengths of general practice but at the same time large enough to provide resilience and support the development of integrated teams.

What are the aims of our network?

1. Have a greater focus on population health and addressing health inequalities in the local area, using data and technology to inform the delivery of population scale care models.
2. Enable a local focus set in the context of collaborations that bring together services that need to be provided at scale.
3. Drive continuity of care for those patients with complex long-term conditions by
   ‘freeing up’ GP time to focus on more complex areas whilst using alternative practitioners to see those with routine needs.
4. Looking at population health needs, working with patients and the public to understand their needs and requirements to deliver the best solutions to meet these.
5. Balance choice and convenience of services and the scale at which the services are delivered.

What does our network do to support patients?

Hounslow Health PCN provides care in different ways to match different needs, including flexible access to advice and support for the wider population, and joint care for those with complex conditions. We employ social prescribers, mental health practitioners, dietitians, clinical pharmacists, physicians associates and physiotherapists to provide a holistic and patient-centered approach to healthcare.

Access to all the PCN clinicians is offered locally at each member practice and thus there is no requirement to travel outside of your normal GP Practice. The PCN also offers access to weekend and evening appointments to see doctors, nurse practitioners, and healthcare assistants. The PCN also has established closer working relationships with local community schemes and local voluntary sector organisations, allowing GP staff to direct you to the most appropriate local agency for your needs.

How does our network run?

Each of Hounslow boroughs’s five Primary Care Networks has at least one elected Clinical Director who is accountable to the GP surgeries in their PCN. In Hounslow Health PCN our Clinical Director is Dr Nittin Kumar.

PCN Clinical Directors are responsible for:

• Helping to steer the PCN and its GP surgeries to improve the quality of care, patient experience and develop new services or ways of working to meet the health needs of the PCN’s patients.
• Encouraging and supporting the GP surgeries in the PCN to work together. This helps with things like sharing learning and experience so that patients get better outcomes from their care.
• Providing leadership to ensure the workforce in the PCN is well supported and the PCN team has the right mix of clinical and non-clinical professionals.
• Working closely with the other PCN Clinical Directors in Hounslow. This is important for when the PCNs need the same support or services, so something can be done once at a borough level instead of five times.

PCN Operations Managers

Your PCN has operations managers who support the Clinical Directors. Their role is to support the PCN with a wide range of business activities. For example, providing data to NHS England, delivering projects and helping all the GP surgery teams in their PCN work together and be involved in the role of the PCN.

They help their PCN to work more closely with other providers for better patient care as well as identify ways to reduce health inequalities so everybody has the same access to health services in Hounslow.