BP Newspaper Issue 8 v5 1-31 (lores) Aug. 2015 | Page 7

NEW PRIMARY
CARE HOMES
ARE SET TO
TRANSFORM
CARE OUTSIDE
HOSPITAL
Dr James Kingsland will be
speaking at Best Practice

A new model of care called the Primary Care Home, with
multidisciplinary teams providing integrated health and social care
services for local populations, has been devised by the NAPC
The Primary Care Home will be formed by clusters of local
practices working together providing personalised care for
combined registered lists of up to 50,000 patients.
The concept is based on international evidence and a
corporate memory of what has previously worked well from
the NHS’ experience of the internal market.
If accepted by NHS England, the model, which fits with the
vision of the Five Year Forward View, could form part of the
implementation programme for multispecialty community
providers, currently being piloted by the vanguard
programme.
The Primary Care Home will house all the traditional
elements of general practice plus a whole range of
community, third sector and social care services and provide
access to some diagnostic services.
Patients’ complex, long term and social care needs will be
supported and will they will be encouraged to self-care.
The workforce will be designed around the needs of the local
populations and with the right skill mix, will prevent overload
and result in improved working lives for practitioners.
Practices will run the primary care home as a collective and
will have a total capitated budget to pay for all contractor
services, community and social care services and the referral
www.bestpracticeshow.co.uk

costs that the CCG currently manages for them. The Primary
Care Home would pay for episodic care in hospital, for high
tech, highly complex and operative procedures and any
blue light events that occur in the middle of the night. But
huge savings would be made from not having to pay for
unnecessary outpatient appointments, some urgent care
services, calls to NHS 111 or visits to walk-in centres and
accident and emergency departments, because the Primary
Care Home would cater for all patients’ requirements by
providing services when the need is greatest throughout the
week.
“The model makes sense because nine out of ten contacts
in the NHS are within primary care yet often fail to result in
finished episodes of care because patients don’t gain access
to the right care”, says Dr James Kingsland, NAPC President.
“People running the primary care home will have a stake in
the ownership and delivery of services. The primary care
home will be a type of accountable care organisation. The
risk is if you don’t work efficiently or manage your budget
properly, then your organisation may go bust. But if the
programme potentially puts livelihoods at risk we will see the
behavioural change that is currently needed that we haven’t
had with previous reforms and we will rea