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The following additional roles work within a Primary Care Network. Primary Care Networks (PCNs) build on current proactive, personalised, and coordinated health and social care for people close to home. We provide care for patients through the services we offer.
Care Coordinators have an important role to play in supporting patients in preparing for or following up on clinical conversations they have with primary care professionals. They work closely with GPs to identify and manage a caseload of identified patients, making sure that appropriate support is available and ensuring that their changing needs are addressed.
The vast majority of musculoskeletal first contact practitioners are physiotherapists with enhanced skills. They can help patients with musculoskeletal issues such as back, neck and joint pain. They can help patients with musculoskeletal issues such as back, neck and joint pain by assessing and diagnosing issues, giving expert advice on how best to manage their conditions and referring them onto specialist services if necessary.
A Nursing Associate bridges the gap between healthcare support workers and registered nurses to deliver hands-on, person-centred care as part of the nursing team. Nursing associates work with people of all ages in a variety of settings in health and social care.
Paramedics can primarily offer support with assessing patients with acute symptoms, but they can develop wider clinical expertise and also become involved in audit, education and even management. The ability to assess and manage emergencies makes paramedics ideally suited to undertaking home visits in the community. Their experience and communication skills also mean they can handle challenging discussions about future wishes, including attitudes towards resuscitation and end-of-life care. With experience and the support of a multidisciplinary team (MDT), paramedics can contribute to anticipatory care, care home ward rounds and even learning disability care as part of a small team of clinicians.
Social Prescribing Link Workers (SPLW) take a holistic approach to patients’ health and wellbeing. They connect people to community groups and statutory services for practical and emotional support. Link Workers also support existing community groups to be accessible and sustainable, and help people to start new groups, working collaboratively with all local partners.
Clinical Pharmacists work alongside a multidisciplinary diverse team of health care professionals in general practice, providing primary support for prescription and medication queries. They are able to clinically assess and treat patients using expert knowledge of medicines for specific disease areas. They take responsibility for the provision of expert advice on clinical medicines and the undertaking of structured clinical reviews with patients to proactively manage their complex polypharmacy needs. They can work directly with you as part of the GP team to make sure your medicines help you to get better and stay well.
Health and Wellbeing Coaches (HWBCs) work alongside patients to coach and motivate, supporting them to become active participants in their own care by self-identifying their needs, setting goals, and implementing their personalised health and care plan. HWBCs may also provide access to self-management education, peer support and social prescribing.
Occupational Therapists (OTs) support people of all ages with problems resulting from physical, mental, social, or development difficulties. OTs provide interventions that help people find ways to continue with everyday activities that are important to them. This could involve learning new ways to do things or making changes to their environment to make things easier.
Pharmacy Technicians play an important role within general practice and complement the work of Clinical Pharmacists. They’re able to perform tasks such as audits, discharge management and prescription issuing. They help patients get the best from their medicines by switching medications to agreed and approved protocols, improving repeat prescribing processes in General Practice, including promotion of repeat dispensing and online ordering, minimising clinical risk and aiming to reduce wasted medicines.
Dietitians translate the science of nutrition into everyday information about food and advise people on their food and nutrition choices. They assess, diagnose and treat dietary and nutritional problems at an individual and wider public health level. Dietitians use the most up-to-date public health and scientific research on food, health and disease which they translate into practical guidance. They utilise behaviour modification methods and motivational interviewing techniques as well as innovative digital practice to enable service users to make appropriate lifestyle and food choices to manage their own conditions, and so have a significant impact on clinical outcomes.
Mental Health Practitioners (MHP) can provide a combined consultation, advice, triage and liaison function. Working with other PCN based roles, MHPs can address a range of biopsychosocial needs for patients with mental health problems, and facilitate onward access to long term treatment.
Physician Associates (PA) are healthcare professionals with a generalist medical education, who work alongside doctors as an integral part of a multi-disciplinary team. They are trained to perform a number of day-to-day tasks including:
Podiatrists are trained to diagnose, treat, prevent and rehabilitate complications of the feet, ankles and lower limbs. They prevent, manage and correct foot problems, relieve pain, treat infection and keep people of all ages mobile and active. Podiatrists provide assessment, evaluation and foot care for a wide range of patients, which range from low-risk to long-term acute conditions such as diabetes, rheumatism and cerebral palsy. They are the experts in all aspects of foot and lower limb structure, function and health. This includes people with lower limb bio-mechanical problems, structural deformities, vascular issues, diabetes, arthritis, dermatological problems and infection.