Our PCN team helped patients over 20,000 times last year
In 2023, our specialist Primary Care Network teams completed over 20,000 appointments, tasks, and contacts with patients in Gosforth and Jesmond.
Primary Care Networks are groups of GP practices working together using additional funding to provide extra services to meet patients’ needs.
Our two PCNs – North Gosforth and Jesmond Lower Gosforth – work together to share resources, ideas, and innovations.
Here’s what our team delivered in 2023.
Clinical Pharmacists
Our Clinical Pharmacy team are experts in medicine. Their role is to make sure that any patient who needs medication is prescribed the most effective, safest option for them.
Through in-depth reviews in our practices, care homes and remotely, the team talk with patients about their medication – how they feel about it, their understanding of what it’s for and how it helps, and how to take it safely.
And the team look at all that through a holistic lens that takes all parts of your health into account. Where there are issues, they know how to address them, and where there are opportunities for improvements, they know how to take them.
In 2023, the number of reviews, appointments, tasks and patient and practice queries the team got through totalled a staggering 12,316.
Health and Wellbeing Coaching
Health and Wellbeing Coaching is a vital part of working proactively to keep patients well.
By offering advice and education on a range of things from nutrition and healthy eating to getting active and managing conditions like diabetes, Health and Wellbeing Coaches bring a new level of expertise and support to patients.
We now have coaches working in both networks – Jesmond Lower Gosforth and North Gosforth, and last year’s total of 741 appointments are already in the team’s sights.
Home Visits
A big goal of primary care networks is making sure everyone who needs primary care can get it, even if they can’t get to their GP practice.
Our Home Visits service offers fast, responsive, expert assessments for patients at home.
Working closely with GPs at all practices in Gosforth and Jesmond, our team of advanced paramedics and nurse practitioners can assess, treat, and manage patients’ acute needs, including prescribing medication and referring them to other services.
Last year, 2,7054 visits were paid to patients at their homes in Jesmond and Gosforth.
Here’s what a typical day in the life of an Advanced Paramedic Practitioner is like, and meet the team who lives them.
Nurse appointments
Another big part of health equality is keeping people with limited mobility healthy, not just treating them when they are unwell.
Our nursing team plays a massive role in helping people with long-term conditions manage their health and live as independently and healthily as possible.
Last year, our team held 2,465 appointments with patients.
Social Prescribing Link Workers
Our Social Prescribers help people with all areas of their wellbeing that can’t be treated with medicine.
From mental health support and counselling to action plans to combat isolation and exercise classes to prevent frailty, our Social Prescribers have a massive book of contacts and know how to get you to the best people to help.
As well as the hugely popular Meet and Move physio classes, the team launched Cuppa Club for over 65s and a support service for people with new cancer diagnoses last year.
They are also at the front of our health equality work, with projects focussing on promoting services and access for people with learning disabilities, military veterans, and their families.
One thousand one hundred eighty-eight appointments were held in 2023, providing patients with vital support.
Same Day Access
In 2023, we launched our Same Day Access service. It makes more appointments available to patients who need to be seen as soon as possible.
All GP practices in Gosforth and Jesmond have access to the Same Day Service, so if patients have acute needs and the practice has no capacity, patients can be booked in to see a network Advanced Paramedic or Nurse Practitioner.
Despite only launching fully in July last year, 1,178 appointments were held. Specialist Paediatric clinics have also been added to ensure children are seen as soon as possible.
