Article Delivering Primary Care in buildings fit for the future

A national process called the Primary Care Estates Toolkit is taking place, which is set to inform a future Government spending review and ensure that the needs of primary care are looked at when considering capital investment requirements.

Nationally, Community Health Partnerships have been commissioned to undertake the work in conjunction with local organisations and in Cornwall, Kernow Health CIC was delighted that CHP and NHS Kernow agreed to commission the Excellence in Practice team to support the process. This means our local knowledge can ensure we meet external requirements while more importantly ‘tweaking’ the process so that it minimises the workload for our busy practices and PCN’s.

What happens now?

The initial stage of the process is to ensure there is accurate baseline information about all the premises used by primary care across Cornwall – around 100 buildings.

The national framework and toolkit is designed to:

• Provide a national framework with practical tools for use and application to support PCNs and the ICS to identify their primary care estate change and investment requirements. Critical is the optimisation of existing GP and wider estate through partnership working.
• Starts with a focus on key stakeholder engagement and consideration of priorities in line with a population health-led approach to care design.
• Aligns with the Primary Care Data Gathering (PCDG) datasets and SHAPE PCDG Atlas analysis and reporting tools, minimising duplication of effort in establishing the initial baseline.
• Allows the ICS and PCN’s to further develop and not replicate or replace anything you have already started work on.
• Provides support to PCNs throughout the process.

Taking a ‘One Public Estate’ approach

The next priority is working with each PCN to help them to articulate how they expect primary care-led integrated service delivery to change over the coming years, by setting out its clinical service strategy. This means that the process does not look at primary care estate in isolation but encourages a ‘One Public Estate’ approach where everyone thinks about changes in both the range of services delivered locally and where that takes place.

For example, we know many PCNs have found it difficult to make the best use of investment for extra ARRS staff due to lack of space whilst increased use of digital access means for some patients there is less need to physically visit the surgery.

Prioritise investment in a systematic way

ICA’s are also increasing their focus on how staff from different organisations can work together to provide personalised, locally accessible care to people. In addition to GP practice premises,  Cornwall has a significant investment in community hospitals and other public sector buildings, so is well placed to deliver local access – the challenge now is to understand the implications of plans for increased integration.

The Primary Care Estates Toolkit will, over the coming months, enable us to look at the future use of buildings and prioritise investment in a systematic way so that our ICA’s, and in turn the ICB, can make best use of the buildings we have already and to invest for the future.