Royal Crescent Surgery is part of the Cheltenham Central Primary Care Network (PCN) along with:

• Prestbury Park Medical
• Berkeley Place
• Yorkleigh
• Underwood
• Overton Park

PCNs form a key building block in the NHS long-term plan. Bringing general practices together to work at scale has been a policy priority for some years for a range of reasons, including improving the ability of practices to recruit and retain staff; to manage financial and estate pressures; to provide a wider range of services to patients and to more easily integrate with the wider health care system.

PCNs will eventually be required to deliver a set of seven national service specifications. Five will start by April 2020:

• Structured medication reviews
• Enhanced health in care homes
• Anticipatory care (with community services)
• Personalised care
• Supporting early cancer diagnosis

The remaining two will start in 2021:

• Cardiovascular disease case-finding
• Locally agreed action to tackle inequalities

As part of the above our surgeries already provide joint Improved Access (IA) Clinics based at Overton Park surgery on weekday evenings and all day at the weekends. These appointments can be booked through calling us on our main number 01242 580248.

Our clinical system (SystmOne), allows us to share your GP record with your explicit permission, this means your care can always be complete, no matter where you are seen. We have signed a data sharing agreement to allow us to work together appropriately and to protect your personal data. Details of this agreement are available on request. Each time you book an Improved Access appointment you will be asked if it is ok to share your record with the clinician you are going to see and the clinician will ask at the appointment if it is ok to share back to the surgery. You can withdraw consent at any time, but will not be able to have an Improved Access appointment without it.

The PCN has recently appointed five clinical pharmacists to work in our practices. Royal Crescent would like to welcome Andrew Kings to the surgery. He may contact you to undertake medication reviews, or to discuss how you can get the most from your medicines, he is also available for medication queries. Over the next 2-3 years the team will expand to include physiotherapists, paramedics and social prescribers, all working across the PCN practices.

NHS England has confirmed that our integrated community-based teams, such as community nurses and mental health will configure their services around our joint primary care network boundaries. These new teams will continue to provide services to people with more complex needs and by working closely with our surgeries will provide improved proactive and anticipatory care.

Our PCNs will also be expected to think about the wider health of our population, taking a proactive approach to managing population health and from 2020/21 assessing the needs of their local population to identify people who would benefit from targeted proactive support.