NHSE urges system leaders to ‘understand’ primary care in their areas

Nikki Kanani made the plea on NHS Confederation’s Health on the Line podcast, saying there needs to be a “shift in culture and behaviour” towards person-centred care, which will rely heavily on the expertise and experience in primary care.

NHSE’s medical director for primary care said: “If you are genuinely thinking about how you are putting the person at the centre of care that you’re to deliver, and your responsibility to reduce health inequalities and unwarranted variation in care, we have to start in general practice and with a wider primary care team.

“So, my urge to ICS leaders would be to start to understand what primary care looks like in your system.

“How it functions, where are the gaps where people fall in through holes, where are the conversations with the kind of clinical leadership, and how are we making sure that is informing the decisions that you’re making.”

Dr Kanani also suggested many primary care teams are still over-reliant on GPs, and that other healthcare professionals such as pharmacists, physiotherapists and paramedics should be supported to offer “end-to-end” care where possible.

Better communication is needed with the public and profession, through the government and other authorities, to help them understand how the traditional model of general practice is evolving in this way, she added.

Her comments came the day before NHSE’s review into primary care, led by GP and ICS leader Claire Fuller, said all primary care networks should become “integrated neighbourhood teams”.

When asked about where she would like to see primary care in 2030, Dr Kanani said: “I would like to see a much more flexible and energised set of teams caring for their communities who feel like they are able to design and deliver services in a way that feels relevant to their local place….

“And therefore, we’ve got a system where it doesn’t matter what the model looks like – vertically integrated, horizontally integrated, who you’re integrated with – that’s not the point. The point is, how do we get the set of services to come together around an individual in a way that allows the workforce to fly?”