Avonside Health Centre is part of the Kenilworth and Warwick Primary Care Network (PCN), which also includes four other local Practices (Priory Medical Centre, Chase Meadow Health Centre, Abbey Medical Centre and Castle Medical Centre). Together, we have over 62,000 patients! Across South Warwickshire there are seven Primary Care Networks.

PCN’s were introduced as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. The aim of a PCN is to work collaboratively to improve services for patients at a larger scale, but relevant to your local area. For example, the needs of our patients in Warwick and Kenilworth may differ to the needs of patients in more rural areas. By being a part of a PCN we can influence local changes and services that are better tailored to our patient population. This is something we would not be able to achieve as an individual GP Practice. More information on this can be found here.

You may have noticed over the last few years that GP Practice teams have expanded and now include a variety of different types of clinician (other than Health Care Assistants, Nurses and General Practitioners, which has historically been the main clinical staff groups). These staff have been recruited through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme and work across the Practices in the PCN. GPs and Nurses have recently been added to the list of staff that can be recruited under this scheme with some caveats. For example, GPs must have qualified within the last 2 years to be eligible under the scheme. In Kenilworth & Warwick PCN, we have the following staff groups (click here to see who we have in our Practice from the PCN):

• GPs
• Clinical Pharmacists
• Pharmacy Technicians
• First Contact Musculoskeletal Practitioners
• Community Paramedics
• Social Prescribing Link Workers
• Care Co-ordinators
• Health & Wellbeing Coaches
• Digital Transformation Lead

By having a more diverse team our Practices are able to better direct patients to an appropriate care pathway, as GPs may not always be the most suitable clinician or experts in a particular area. For example, Social Prescribers have the local knowledge to support patients with social issues that would otherwise be booked with a GP. Clinical Pharmacists are experts in medications and complete complex medication reviews. All of this supports our Practices to provide more tailored care and supports our GPs to see more complex patients.

One of the major successes of the Kenilworth & Warwick PCN is the Covid vaccination programme. Our PCN was part of the first wave of providers to give Covid vaccinations in December 2020, and since then we have given over 200,000 Covid vaccinations which is a huge achievement. This has been achieved by pooling our resources and operating from a separate location (currently Brese Avenue Surgery, Priory Medical Centre and Kenilworth Methodist Church), which has allowed our Practice teams to focus on the day-to-day patient care and operations of our Practices. This model of working has allowed for the co-administration of both the Covid and flu vaccinations at various sites, which has again allowed our Practice-based teams to continue providing day-to-day care. Vaccinating at this scale would not be achievable as a single GP Practice.

To see our full Practice team click here.