Primary care
Feature
Looking forward , PCNs will integrate with community services – mental health , district nursing , community rehabilitation , social care and voluntary , community and social enterprise ( VCSE ) services – to deliver services locally as a ‘ neighbourhood ’, with groups of smaller general practices now working together in PCNs supporting a population of up to 50,000 people .
Further to this , many PCNs have signed up to the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service ( DES ) ( NHS 2020 ), to deliver on the following priority workstreams to their communities : Enhanced Health in Care Homes ; early cancer diagnosis ; structured medication reviews and medicines optimisation ; cardiovascular disease diagnosis and prevention ; tackling neighbourhood inequalities ; personalised care ; amd anticipatory care .
This is primarily to support an ageing population . The number of older people within England is growing . The Office of National Statistics predicts that the largest proportion of people will be those over the age of 65 by mid- 2028 , making up nearly 20 % of the population ( ONS 2020 ).
Of these , 75 % of 75-year-olds in the UK have more than one long-term health condition , rising to 82 % of 85-year-olds ( Barnet et al 2012 ).
Somerset has a proportionately higher population of older persons , as well as areas with challenges such as economic deprivation . So , it is important to establish preventative services to help people to remain healthy and independent for as long as possible .
Somerset occupational therapy leaders would like to see occupational therapy primary care network provision across the whole county , recognising our unique contribution to help deliver these workstreams .
In the first year , we have supported five PCNs to introduce seven occupational therapists into the ARRS service , with Somerset NHS Foundation Trust co-producing an occupational therapy service and hosting the clinical workforce . We will continue to roll out into new primary care network areas over the next 24 months .
Within our team in North Sedgemoor , which supports the Enhanced Health in Care Homes workstream , there are two occupational therapists , three complex care GPs , pharmacists , care co-ordinators and health coaches .
Our ‘ normal ’ work pattern
What does a ‘ normal ’ – if there is such a thing – day or week look like for us ? We are a new multidisciplinary team and quite unique in how
Above left to right : Sarah Ormandy Complex Care GP , Alexander Kaiser Complex Care GP , Hattie Stevens OT , Helen Rostron OT and Kyle Hepburn Clinical Pharmacist , North Sedgemoor PCN Clinical Team
we approach this , compared with the other primary care networks .
On a Monday , we go through our referral process to decide which clinician or clinicians are the most appropriate for the residents . Tuesday , Wednesday , Thursday and Friday are clinical days . Thursday afternoons are used to meet as a team , where we take part in continuing professional development and case review and complete administration and clinical governance .
At present , we predominantly work from home or out of different general practice surgeries . We use Microsoft Teams to chat whenever we are not face-to-face , to keep us linked .
Establishing caseloads
Another question might be , how is our work delegated and how do we establish who is appropriate for our caseloads ? We are fortunate in Somerset to be engaging in several exciting technological developments . We receive our referrals from an application called Brave , which is an artificial intelligence data programme .
75 %
of 75-year-olds in the UK have more than one long-term health condition
20 %
of the population will be aged 65 or over by mid-2028
June 2022 OTnews 21