North Tyneside NHS Tripartite primary care strategy v1 7

The Future of Healthcare in North Tyneside:
A Primary Care Strategy
A clinician-led collaborative model
Tripartite Strategy between
Newcastle & North
Tyneside LMC
GP registered list – cradle to grave and holistic care
Employer agnostic – working together with our partners
ImprovingAccess
toCare
EnhancedPrimary
Careteam
Specialist
support
Prevention&self
management
Healthy, Happy Population
North Tyneside

Summary
Our NHS faces challenges on multiple fronts. An ageing population with all of the diseases of old
age; a population with bad dietary habits and of inactivity; unprecedented increases in mental
illness, all of which threaten to overwhelm the NHS.
In 2014, Simon Stevens delivered a blueprint for new Models of Care in the form of the Five Year
Forward View[1]. This proposes a number of future models, with a certain amount of crossover.
The most efficient, the best for patients, and the most cost-effective solutions centre around the
registered list[2], with patient care coordinated and managed by a GP practice and the wrap-around
of other services managed to ensure no gaps and a minimum of expensive duplication.
At a time when we all need to use or resources productively to find solutions, it is indicative that this
document has been produced in a collaboration between TyneHealth GP Federation, Newcastle &
North Tyneside LMC and North Tyneside CCG.
This clinician led collaborative type of model forms the basis of a transformational Primary Care
Strategy for North Tyneside that is effective and sustainable.
1. Redesigning Access to Primary Care
The NHS model, where patients are registered with a GP-led family practice, has delivered
outstanding outcomes within budgets[3] that are the envy of governments throughout the
developed world[4, 5].
It is the most cost-effective way to manage Long-Term Conditions, especially when combined with
the other partners as defined below[6, 7]. But same-day appointments and urgent care may be best
delivered from local ‘hubs’, and proactive interventions may need a different approach entirely.
We propose a GP led clinical team with a mix of skills and disciplines utilising new technologies to
manage patients who need same day appointments, notionally available 8am-8pm 7 days per week.
This is not about all practices opening their doors 8am-8pm 7 days per week but organising on a
useful level and sharing responsibility. Clusters of practices will work in ‘virtual hubs’, small enough
to be personal and close to the patient but a large enough population to work efficiently for all. This
would link with urgent care services so that scarce resources can be used in the most flexible way.
We believe that redesigning access in this way will both improve access to same day appointments
in primary care as well as freeing up sufficient GP time to properly support those patients with more
complex needs.
2. Extended Primary Care Team (EPCT)
More, and more complex care has moved out of hospitals and into primary care. With recruitment
crises, the heroic GP can no longer cope with the sheer volumes – approximately 1.3million patient
contacts per year in North Tyneside alone. The EPCT will enrich the team with a range of healthcare
professionals of complementary disciplines, working together to deliver the best care for each
patient, and free up GP time to do the things that only GPs can do – diagnosing the complex patient
safely in the community.
3. Integrating Specialist Support
Many patients have multiple co-morbidities, and specialists need to bring their skills into the
community, closer to patients, to support the primary care team to deliver whole-person healthcare.
These specialists can continue to be employed by the hospital or any other provider, and provide
mobile clinics and transfer of knowledge to healthcare professionals in the community.

This is about joining up the care provided by professionals who support the same people. This will be
achieved by shifting the care resources to manage the health and care needs of patients to the most
appropriate location.
4. Prevention and self-management
The only way to sustain financial balance is to put ownership back with the patient. We will support
people to manage their own health, linking them with social support systems in their community
and identifying when a non-clinical intervention will produce the best experience and outcomes for
patients.
New ways of working
Defaulting to how things have always been done, to resist change that will benefit patients because
it may cause uncertainty and challenge, is not an option. There is an undeniable case for change
driven by changes in demographics, medical complexity and patient expectation and stretching of
roles up to the limit of their license. We have to find new and better ways, and implement the ideas
that we have. Outcomes, and the routes to them, are sometimes uncertain, but using iterative ways
of improvement can help develop the best solutions for all.
Co-ordinated safely shared electronic records are no longer simply a desire, but an essential part of
running services properly today. Other effective technological developments e.g. tele-health can
make new care delivery a reality.
Commissioning will need to be done differently too, with new ways of developing, delivering,
contracting and monitoring services. We need to remove barriers to delivering the right care in the
right place by the right people.
The Approach
This new model should be approached as a significant change management project, with sufficient
priority, time and resource to be successful. This will consider:
Communication – with the public, representatives of the public, patients, and healthcare
professionals
Collaboration – engaging all organisations in the North Tyneside Healthcare Economy, utilising an
‘employer-agnostic’ model to ensure the best staff are available to deliver services without changing
their employment arrangements, unless it makes sense to.
Implementing - and ensuring engagement is often more difficult than planning and designing. For
many professional reasons (especially clinical risk) people do not like change; but change designed
and implemented by engaged front line staff can achieve what is perceived as impossible. Without
engagement, without identifying leaders and developing a project Implementation programme, we
might have a plan for a new model of care but it will not work, nor will it realise the benefits that we
all hope for. Working groups need to represent the whole system including patients.
Management Resource – this change needs to be planned, it needs to be implemented, and the
changes need to be communicated and supported. This takes time and energy, and needs to be
resourced.

The Finances
The CCG has a large financial deficit that has to be addressed. A model of the future working of the
healthcare system needs to address this and of course it has to be recognised that a new model has
to be financially sustainable and works within its cost envelope and that resources may need to be
re-deployed as work shifts around the system.
GPs already deliver an outstanding workload, day after day, year after year, and can do so because
they have the option to remain with a national contract for core primary care services and this is the
preferred option in this model. This maintains patient lists, continuity of care and local access to
practices as we have now.
Out with core primary care services, the extended services as outlined in this model could be
contracted in a number of ways.
Increasing urgent care activity (A&E and walk-in services) has undoubtedly had an effect on
resources across the system. Inconvenient services and constrained access to proactive and planned
care typically results in greater use of urgent care, and at national tariff prices, urgent care is much
more expensive than planned care. So when we want to make a difference to finances, we need to
pay attention to patient experience first, because patients vote with their feet and the finances
follow the patient.

Table of Contents
Summary..........................................................................................................................2
New ways of working ...............................................................................................................3
The Approach...........................................................................................................................3
The Finances ............................................................................................................................4
Table of Contents .............................................................................................................5
Background......................................................................................................................6
A collaborative model ..............................................................................................................7
Balanced Scorecard ..................................................................................................................7
Health Need.............................................................................................................................8
Types of Need ..........................................................................................................................9
Cost-Effective Innovative Health Care............................................................................. 10
PROPOSAL 1: Redesigning Access to Primary Care................................................................... 11
PROPOSAL 2: Extended Primary Care Team (EPCT) .................................................................. 14
PROPOSAL 3: Integrating Specialist Support............................................................................ 17
PROPOSAL 4: Prevention and self-management...................................................................... 19
Conclusions and Next Steps ............................................................................................ 21
What we need to do first........................................................................................................ 21

Background
The NHS is considered the best health service in the world[8], in terms of outcomes and cost-
effectiveness [4].
GP practice and primary care is the jewel in the crown of the NHS[2]. Studies show that it is the
family physician, determining which services can most effectively put patients back on the road to
health and providing most of this care, that keeps costs low and quality high [3]. General Practice,
with 7% of the NHS budget, sees 75% of the patient contacts; acute care, with 70% of the NHS
budget, sees only 10%.
North Tyneside CCG seeks to achieve financial balance – there is a widespread acknowledgement
that this happens if services are based around GP practices [3], which is why this document
describes how to bring care closer to patients, to design care around patients, and to align pathways
where patients have multiple co-morbidities.
The NHS is facing some of the greatest challenges in a generation. As across the country generally,
the population in North Tyneside is ageing, more people have long-term conditions, and resources
are not keeping pace with demand. Morale amongst frontline clinical staff is an issue and this is
leading to problems with recruitment and retention in many areas.
To respond to these challenges a new approach to the health and social care of our population is
needed. Simon Steven’s Five Year Forward View is a blue print for these changes and suggests a
number of models of care. The name of the model is not important and does not reflect the
crossover between all suggested models so this document concentrates on what the model will look
like.
This change must be clinically led and patient centred. It must have the support of the local GPs, the
Council of Practices and the senior managers in Clinical Commissioning Groups. Critically, this must
see us working far more closely with the Local Authority and the Voluntary Sector.
There are many positive and great things about the NHS but it has become overly bureaucratic, with
organisational barriers, and too much focus on process measures rather than outcomes. The current
system - funded by activity, assessed by process measures and segmented into organisational silos -
creates inefficiencies, perverse incentives and is one of the reasons that change can often become
difficult.
An innovative model of care across North Tyneside is needed which both reflects the needs of local
communities and the challenges of the future. It is now well recognised that practices of the future
will look very different from those both GPs and patients have become used to and this will require
new ways of working[1, 2, 9, 10]. In North Tyneside GPs are already working as part of a larger
structure, TyneHealth Ltd., which will enable more collaborative work with other parts of the health
system and potentially under different contracting arrangements.
Many GPs are adamant that they wish to continue as independent contractors, and that must be
respected. However, there are some who are reflecting on different options, such as a preference to
working as a sessional GP and do not envisage seeking a partnership in the future.
All in all, North Tyneside GPs must be at the heart of any new way of working, driving these changes
through for the benefit of patients. The LMC poses a test that any new model adheres to the core
principles of general practice which both patients and GPs value.
The core strengths of general practice should be built upon, in particular:
 The connection with a local community which enables GPs to be strong advocates for their
patients
 General Practice at the heart of a stable care system - one that is attractive to doctors

considering a career in general practice
 The involvement of community and secondary care clinicians in an integrated collaborative
way of working
 A model of working that enables innovation, adaptive and efficient working
 Having a strong GP Federation, which can work as an advocate for primary care with other
health and social care providers in North Tyneside to integrate care
 The GP Federation can support their member practices to manage workload and provide
services by sharing proven practice, functions, support staff and services. It is well placed to
help integrate existing community services and nursing based teams with general practice.
Crucially it could facilitate the movement of members of extended practice teams, or even
employ them, alternating between different practices within the federation during any given
week, patients will be able to get the services they need at their nearest practice.
A collaborative model
General practices in North Tyneside can work collaboratively within a wider structure of local
healthcare provision along the lines suggested in the Five Year Forward View and GP Forward View.
At its core, this model is about retaining the GP voice and local accountability within North
Tyneside. Practices work together and in collaboration with other parts of the health system, with
the vast majority of general practice work continuing, as now, to take place at practice level and be
delivered by practice teams.
Importantly North Tyneside patients would still identify with practices as being "theirs", based in the
local community.
All local health and social care services continue to be under severe pressure. Demand for services is
rising and is expected to continue to rise. Increasing numbers of people need help with multiple
complex health problems, and this group is expected to account for at least half of all GP
appointments by 2025. But the workforce of clinicians and other care professionals, and the money
available to meet this demand, are limited.
Rising demand places pressure on staff, on services and on public finances. General practices across
North Tyneside are reporting an increasing pressure from high levels of GP and staff vacancies, and
from a rising workload caused by more patients with long-term conditions.
The registered list, based in General Practice, will remain the foundation of NHS care in North
Tyneside. Most local people report high levels of satisfaction with the NHS, however, many people
also remain dissatisfied with access to appointments, and want to see more integrated health and
social care services with fewer ‘hand-offs’ between agencies and between professional groups. Too
many patients are admitted to hospital or long term care, or have extended stays in hospital, when
their needs could have been met in the community.
The way care is organised currently means that there are artificial barriers between GPs, community
services and hospitals, between physical and mental health, and between health and social care. The
organisations within North Tyneside have recognised this and are developing a more collaborative
way of working through an ‘Accountable Care Organisation (ACO)’ or Integrated Care model in North
Tyneside. It’s important that as this model develops it recognises the value of clinically led decision
making and the need for primary care to change in the way described in this strategy.
Balanced Scorecard
The NHS is huge, the second largest department in UK government and the employer of over
1million people across UK. In North Tyneside, it affects the lives of everyone, providing a maternity
(pre-birth) to bereavement counselling (post grave) service, and is a major employer.

Some of the components of this model include the workforce, sustainability, estates, resilience - the
impact can best be described in a balanced scorecard (along with some aspirations illustrated below)
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
PUBLIC&PATIENT
Clinical Outcomes
Proactive interventions
Earlier diagnosis and treatment
Better prognoses from treatment
Better population health
Improved mental health
Reduced suicides/ substance misuse
Improved ability to work
Patient Experience
Care closer to home
Access to services
Named team and wrap-around care
Care coordination via registered list
One-and-done
Reduced pain/ reduced time with pain
Years in the life and Life in the Years
PROCESS
Financial Balance
Earlier treatment => less costly treatment
Most appropriate setting, most appropriate
professional (Right Time, Right Place, Right Skill)
More planned and proactive, less emergency
A healthy population = less NHS cost
Coordinated care across services, Health & Social Care,
Public/ Private/ Voluntary
Named team/ registered list coordinates
Workforce
Succession planning, structured training,
most appropriate skill
Empowered and supported
Motivated and enthusiastic
Employer-agnostic (stability of
employment)
Reduced Recruitment/ Retention costs
Reduced sickness-absence costs
Health Need
Similarly, it’s worth understanding the patient base.
North Tyneside’s health is described in the JSNA[11]. It’s a local government and CCG area of
contrasts, with 21.3% of the population amongst the most deprived in England and other areas far
from deprived:

Types of Need
People access health and care in three different ways, depending on their personal circumstances at
the time, although in a given period an individual may make use of all three:
 Planned care:- this includes routine appointments to manage a known condition without
complications, routine support and planned treatment of acute and chronic conditions
including elective operations and specialist care
 Unplanned and emergency care:- where the person is in crisis, whether physical health,
mental health, accident or however caused
 Proactive activities to improve health and minimize illness and the costs associated with
illness
Of these, unplanned and emergency care is generally the most expensive, and the same in-hospital
treatment for a specified intervention is typically 50% more expensive on an emergency tariff as the
equivalent elective tariff.

Cost-Effective Innovative Health Care
One size does not fit all – patients are not widgets and different services need to be developed to
support different needs.
Therefore North Tyneside needs a mixed healthcare provision with solutions to meet the varying
needs of patients highlighted in the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment[11].
Fundamental to the delivery of cost-effective health care is to improve the proactive and planned
care of patients, treating patients early and avoiding emergency and unscheduled need, which
results in worse clinical outcomes for patients who could have been treated earlier, a worse
experience, higher costs, and frustrated staff. Proactive and planned care, and ensuring that
patients don’t slip through the cracks between services (principle 5 of the NHS constitution[8])
depends on registration of the whole population and the coordination of their screening,
information and care by the GP practice.
GP registered list – cradle to grave and holistic care
Employer agnostic – working together with our partners
ImprovingAccess
toCare
EnhancedPrimary
Careteam
Specialist
support
Prevention&self
management
Healthy, Happy Population
North Tyneside

PILLAR 1: Redesigning Access to Primary Care
Routine Care
The NHS model, where patients are registered with a GP-led family practice, has delivered
outstanding outcomes within budgets that are the envy of governments throughout the developed
world, is proven to be the best[3, 4].
GP practices provide care and support from cradle to grave. However, it is recognized that many
people are in employment 9-5 Mon-Fri, and that many GP practices fill up the vast majority of their
daily appointments with routine care, reducing availability for walk-in and urgent care. If patients
want urgent access, they often go direct to A&E, which incurs an additional cost and strains the
overall resource pool.
GP practices are the ideal place for routine appointments – managing long-term conditions, check-
ups and queries: everything that isn’t urgent. The patient wants to meet with someone they know
and trust (so much of healthcare is about the patient’s confidence and the clinician’s confident
manner), in a predictable and planned manner. GP practices are the heart of many communities.
With the right backup and support from their Federation, and by working together all sizes of GP
practice can deliver the highest standards in the best way, whilst still preserving the autonomy of the
partners and the financial viability of the unit.
Urgent and Same-Day appointments
The provision of extended hours and same-day appointments will require a different approach.
Apart from anything else, it is not cost-effective to have urgent care services available, in effect, on
every street corner.
GP practices can work together to oraganise into virtual or substantial hubs, still close to patients
and maintaining clear links with their practices, without patients becoming anonymous. By
permitting direct access to the patient’s full clinical record there will be no less continuity of care for
people who use the service.
These hubs gain the benefits of scale – by covering a much larger population (30,000 – 50,000
patient population is often quoted) they can better predict the volumes of appointments required.

Although a reliance on hi-tech investigation is not desired and principles of General Practice should
be valued, they can include more extensive diagnostics where that makes sense.
The Urgent care and extended hours hubs could also act as an overflow facility for GP practices,
with appropriately supported local clinicians giving telephone advice and triage to local patients.
The patient’s own clinical record must be available to share electronically to ensure high quality
care is convenient to access for those patients who require it. Other forms of tele-medicine need to
be embraced.
This combination of routine care and urgent hubs managed by Primary Care will manage a significant
number of the patient contacts within the NHS in the most effective way. Hubs should operate to a
common core specification, but the precise design and range of services available through these
hubs will vary by locality according to facilities and population need.
For instance, in some locations, a hub may operate during traditional working hours, to provide
more local access to the service, and then allow more central services to function in the evenings
and at weekends. Hours of opening are likely therefore to cover at least 8.00 to 18.30 and
potentially to 20.00 and weekends. Providing urgent care at scale provides the ability to increase
capacity when needed, such as during winter pressures.
Triage is essential to make sure patients get the right care at the right place by the right practitioner.
This needs to include appropriate face-to-face, telephone, and email consultations. Walk-in should
be managed carefully, to avoid the efficiencies in this new model being overwhelmed by its own
success, opening up access inappropriately to ever more patients.
An appropriate level of skill mix is essential, including for example, GP, nurse practitioners,
pharmacy, and reception. Senior clinicians need to be in oversight to manage risk and ensure
appropriate alternative designations to reduce inappropriate redirection and admission.
Patients will still need trauma centres for broken bones and head injuries, and hospital admissions in
emergency situations, but the vast bulk of care will be delivered at a reduced cost, in the
community, at the convenience of the population, and therefore probably earlier in the progression
of disease when it is lower cost to treat.
Urgent
• Hubs in each
locality (4-6 in
total)
Routine
• GP practice
• EPCT
Specialist
• GP practice &
hubs
• O/P
• Day Case

What this means for the balanced scorecard (why is this better for patients?)
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
PUBLIC&
PATIENT
Clinical Outcomes
Using core patient record
Treating the whole person – not just the disease
Patient Experience
Easier, more appropriate access to routine and
urgent care in a primary care setting
More time for routine GP appointments
PROCESS
Financial Balance
professional (Right Time, Right Place, Right
Skill)
More planned and proactive
Less pressure on emergency services and A+E
Workforce
Project Initiation and Workstreams
Communication and design
 Agreement will need to be reached with practices on the footprints and the locations of the
hubs and the hours they cover. This needs to include a review of the estate and IT
implications of providing services in this way, utilising the funding available through the
Primary Care Transformation Fund (PCTF) or similar, to facilitate changes where needed.
 Patients and the public have to be consulted and informed to ensure the new facilities are
used, with more appropriate use of other Urgent Care facilities
 The starting point for localities redesigning access to Primary Care should be an analysis of
the current access issues across all of their practices. Ensure all practices are involved and
represented in this analysis, to building a collective understanding and consensus of the
locality’s access issues and priorities. This may start with analysis of patient surveys and
other data but, with the consent and co-operation of practices, will need to include more
objective and sophisticated analysis of activity so planning is on a firm footing. Companies
such as Doctor First (as used by Northumberland CCG) and GP Access are experienced in this
task. It will need to be resourced.
Workforce
 The hubs will be staffed by an extended primary care team, including member GPs, practice
staff willing to rotate into this environment, and potentially community teams where
available. This will require planning and managing, and plans should be developed for a
future workforce.
Management Resource
 Resource needs to be allocated for managing and delivering this model. For example,
Gateshead Community Based Care (CBC), the GP Federation in Gateshead already provides a
similar tiered access solution: North Tyneside could work with them, where shared learning
and management resource might be available.

Collaboration and co-ordination
 The benefits will be delivered if other NHS and social care partners agree to this and
communicate to patients and the public that they should use this facility for all suitable
urgent care needs
 By working with other organisations, both other providers in North Tyneside and other GP
federations in the North East we will be able to deliver quickly and learn lessons effectively
 This needs to be co-ordinated with the wider urgent care strategy and consultation.
 Work will also be needed with NHS 111 and out of hours services to explore how we can
interface these arrangements to deliver seamless arrangements around the clock.
PILLAR 2: Extended Primary Care Team (EPCT)
More, and more complex care has moved out of hospitals and into primary care. There are
approximately 1.3million patient contacts per year in GP practices in North Tyneside alone. With
this change, the range of knowledge needed has expanded, and the GP can no longer cope with the
sheer volume and range of activity currently undertaken in general practice. Enriching the team with
a range of healthcare professionals of complementary disciplines, working together to deliver the
best care for each patient, can free up GP time to do the things that only GPs can do – diagnosing
the complex patient safely in the community.
The EPCT needs to operate as a single team:
 It may operate at the level of a large practice, a group of smaller practices, locality or GP
Federation level.
 It can provide clinics and specific services within a each that enables them to build up a
relationship with the patient and the primary care team
 Members may be employed by hospital trust or third party and contracted in to the primary
care team or Federation where appropriate
 It will create more satisfying roles for clinicians - making North Tyneside a more attractive
place to work
 It is likely to increase the proportion of people living independently, with better health,
better outcomes and a better life experience (more life in the years)
 It is likely to reduce emergency admissions and reduce the length of time people spend in

hospital.
Examples:
New Models of Care – the North Tyneside Care Plus model
North Tyneside Care Plus (NTCP) an extended practice provides an intensive wrap around service
for frail patients, those patients most likely to end up in emergency and unplanned care, to improve
their health and support in the community and so improve their quality of life and reduce the
demands on emergency and unscheduled care.
The service has started as a pilot in Whitley Bay locality, with an investment in the service of £352k in
the first year. It is calculated that each patient currently has an average cost of healthcare per year
around £20,000, therefore the service is expected to deliver a creditable return on investment,
combined with the substantial and measurable improvement in clinical outcomes, patient experience,
and staff satisfaction (because we all want to do a good job).
NTCP pilot involves stratifying frail patients and consenting them into the wrap around team:
community nursing including Community Matrons, pharmacy, in conjunction with geriatrician
consultants at Northumbria Healthcare Trust. In this pilot the service is sub-contracted to cover
general practice care. Age UK are an important innovation, providing needs assessment and support,
and with management of social health.
Detailed care planning and co-ordination, rapid management and active discharge together help
patients and carers have more confidence that there are alternatives to hospital. To facilitate the
teams being co-located, the Whitley Bay pilot is based in North Tyneside General Hospital.
Deployment in other localities or communities are likely to learn from the lessons of the Whitley Bay
pilot whilst taking into account the individual requirements of their communities.
Aligning community nursing to clusters of practices
It would be beneficial to look to identify the community nursing teams already aligned to
communities throughout North Tyneside, and build stronger relationships between these teams and
the practices in the same community. This will improve handovers between teams, improve
communication and so reduce the time spent in MDTs, and improve the confidence of clinicians and
therefore the confidence and patient experience. Cost of this change is minimal if any, and it leads
to greater staff satisfaction, which is likely to reduce recruitment and retention costs.

INTERNAL EXTERNAL
PUBLIC&PATIENT
Clinical Outcomes
More realistic expectations of best care and where it is
delivered
Patient Experience
Care closer to home
Access to services
Named team and wrap-around care
Care coordination via registered list
One-and-done
Reduced pain/ reduced time with
pain
Better EOL outcomes for patients
PROCESS
Financial Balance
Named team/ registered list coordinates
Fewer unnecessary admissions and readmissions
Workforce
employment)
Reduced Recruitment/ Retention
costs
Reduced sickness-absence costs
Communication and Design
 There won’t be a “one size fits all”. Different clusters of practices and localities may discover
with their patients that different solutions are more appropriate
 The emphasis will be with the GP practice, and local healthcare for local patients, but with
an eye on wider service provision across the whole health and social care economy.
 Identification of groups of patients needing multi-agency expertise, e.g. frail elderly, leads to
a need for support for patients and professionals in the most efficient place in the system.
 Design based on benchmarking, gap analysis and review of existing pathways leads to better
understanding. Resource flows to where the need is – and this is often away from a
dependence on hospital
 Teams from different organisations and with different skills get to know each other, and as a
result there’s more confidence and reduced need for MDTs except for specific patients.
Iterative, continuous improvement leads to flexible, effective services.
Workforce
 Community nursing teams, pharmacists etc. are already aligned to local areas. This will
formalise the relationship with the local cluster of practices and ensure that people get to
know each other and can hand referrals off and back effectively
 It is expected that many of these extended skills staff will continue to be employed by larger
employers, e.g. TyneHealth Ltd., NHCT, NTW, NUTH.
Management Resource

 Initial pilots may be effective simply through getting people talking to each other. However
experience in other parts of the North East indicates that to remain effective, a management
resource is vital to coordinate, manage change, and ensure continued engagement and
communication
 There is increasing need to break down old barriers and roles, to get the right expertise in
the right place and break old perverse incentives. This will need creative new
commissioning and contracting models in addition to provision.
PILLAR 3: Integrating Specialist Support
Many patients have multiple co-morbidities, and specialists need to bring their skills into the
community, closer to patients, to support the primary care team to deliver whole-person
healthcare. These specialists can continue to be employed by the hospital or any other provider,
and provide mobile clinics and expert support to healthcare professionals.
 Redesigning the working relationships between GPs and consultants, such that some
consultants develop local roles embedded within Primary Care
 Introducing more effective methods for communication, advice & guidance, and self-help
 Prioritising specific clinical areas for improvement, for example focusing on improving the
treatment of musculoskeletal conditions or mental health
 Specialist consultants, GPwSI, specialist nurses and AHPs relinquish caseload in order to
provide GPs and front-line generalist staff with the support they need to manage complex
patients
 Specialists assist in the community to transfer knowledge, and run clinics for the patients
who will benefit from specialist clinics
Successfully redesigning and integrating the specialist support to localities can:
 improve quality;
 improve accessibility and outcomes;
 develop teams, relationships and understanding;
 improve patient and staff satisfaction;
 and improve the overall use of resources for delivering care.
The current provision of secondary care, community based services and general practice does not
adequately align workload and capacity with the financial incentives to target resources on those
that would get most benefit. A new approach to long-term condition management is therefore
needed - and can be created in our new locality based services.
Examples:
Pharmacists in GP practices
North Tyneside CCG currently commissions an extensive Medicines Optimisation Team which includes
practice based pharmacists and technicians. Some GP practices also already employ pharmacists to
manage medication reviews, enact hospital discharge letters to ensure the patient is on the correct
medication and understands the timetables and protocols, monitor and titrate, etc. There are
significant interfaces at the community pharmacy and secondary care pharmacy level, and there is
great potential in co-ordinating all these services better.
Pharmacist involvement in patient care is crucial in care homes, the pharmacies and in practices,
helping with medicine optimisation and safety. It is established that improving the support for

medicines in the right places, focussing especially on hard to reach groups and improving consistency
across the system, will improve outcomes and reduce waste.
Musculoskeletal services
There are currently multiple musculoskeletal services in the area, used in different ways. A new
integrated Musculoskeletal Service is being designed to provide cost effective co-ordinated and
equitable care across North Tyneside. This should help support GP practices to ensure patients get
early support which avoids conditions getting worse, and avoids the higher treatment cost of hospital
remedial action.
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
PUBLIC&PATIENT
Clinical Outcomes
Patient Experience
Care closer to home
Access to services
One-and-done
Reduced pain/ reduced time with pain
PROCESS
Financial Balance
professional (Right Time, Right Place, Right Skill)
More planned and proactive, less unnecessary hospital
reliance
Workforce
Succession planning, structured training,
most appropriate skill
employment)
Communication and Design
 The opportunities are endless – we will need to map the availability of suitable facilities
locally and plan to bring outpatient and day-case clinics into the community. The PCTF can
be utilised to develop facilities to enable this change.
Workforce
 Realign workforce to support patients where gain will be best felt - can be done without
changing employer, and this may facilitate new working practices.
Management Resource
 Whilst some progress can be made by getting doctors talking to doctors, experience
elsewhere indicates that the real benefits require a planned collaborative approach and
negotiation of contracts and prices. This takes time and resource.
 There are many opportunities for collaboration between providers. Commissioning again
needs to advance to address these new models of provision and support in the community.

PILLAR 4: Prevention and self-management
An important way to sustain financial balance is to put ownership back with the patient. We need to
support people to manage their own health, linking them with social support systems in their
community and identifying when a non-clinical intervention will produce the best experience and
outcomes for patients.
 Supporting people to address lifestyle factors that increase the population’s risk of ill health
 Case finding to enable earlier interventions
 Using care navigators, surgery sign-posters or other ‘social prescribers’ to link people to local
support
 Developing digital solutions and apps to support people manage their long term conditions.
 Taking a whole person approach in every interaction between patients and care
professionals.
 Empowering patients to draw on their skills, abilities and circles of support
Addressing unhealthy lifestyles can help prevent the development or deterioration of long-term
conditions. This model gives us the opportunity to systematically address unhealthy lifestyles
and the management of long-term conditions and also support patients to manage conditions
themselves where safe and appropriates:
a) Using structured brief interventions and motivational interviewing techniques in primary
care which can lead to changes in behaviour. For example, staff can help with brief
interventions following a short training course to ‘Make Every Contact Count’.
b) Detecting long term conditions early, and supporting people to actively manage their
condition. This can reduce complications and need for crisis/urgent care. Key to good
management is enabling the patient to be in control of his or her own health.
c) Personalised care planning and co-ordination, structured education programmes and
computer based self-help, which have all been shown to have a positive effect on biological
markers used to demonstrate control of long terms conditions.
d) Using patient activation methodologies, identifying patients with low control over their
health and tailoring interventions to improve activation and therefore health outcomes.
e) Reviewing ’social prescribing’. Whilst the evidence base is not well developed, there are
many social prescribing models which enable clinicians to recognise when a social
intervention is more appropriate than a clinical one and connect people to non-medical
sources of support, usually facilitated or delivered by local voluntary and community
organisations. North Tyneside has experience of this, which can be drawn on.
f) Consistent personal and community education for self-care of simple ailments.
Encouraging, supporting and giving confidence to patients, carers and parents to manage
simple problems, with clear safety-nets, can engender a culture of enablement,
responsibility and self-reliance which will enhance the whole of the NHS. This happens well
when patients see the same team for their urgent care, whom they recognise and have
confidence in and who are in return known to their health team. This can be backed up with
campaigns across the community.
g) Wider than health. Working with the Voluntary Sector helping with non-medical support
and planning. Considering the effects of housing, education and employment on health in
direct ways.

INTERNAL EXTERNAL
PUBLIC&PATIENT
Clinical Outcomes
Proactive interventions
Improved mental health
Patient Experience
Care closer to home
Access to services
More personal confidence and self-
reliance in health care
Years in the life and life in the years
PROCESS
Financial Balance
A healthy population = less NHS cost
Less reliance of health professionals
Workforce
employment)
Communication and design
 Using face to face opportunities, posters, social media, advertising across multiple
organisations to promote healthy living and disease prevention
 Embedding in all service design, encouraging consistent and sensible advice
 Specific campaign and programme design for specific issues
 Use innovative IT solutions to enable patients to better manage their condition
Workforce
 GPs, nurses, physios, teachers, social workers, health visitors, midwives, and endless other
public servants and volunteers working together to promote healthy living.
Management Resource
 Opportunistic health promotion remains vital but coordination will be important in this area
for a consistent approach, message, information, advertising, this might be something that
volunteer organisations and Public Health England can work together on.
 There are many opportunities for collaboration in this area, but consistency and common
sense are the keys:
 With Public Health England and voluntary sector
 With secondary care, urgent and emergency care services to help educate people regarding
self-care and appropriate use of services.
 With GPs, Nurses, Health visitors, Schools, Pharmacies, employment agencies and voluntary
agencies/Volunteers, Patient .co.uk, ARC, etc.

Conclusions and Next Steps
This strategy describes a model for Primary Care in North Tyneside, but it goes further than that: it
establishes a strong and sustainable position that Primary Care, and in particular General Practice,
can take in the wider health economy moving forward. Without this there is a real risk that the
essential and unique work that is done in Primary Care, some of which is hard to define, may be
thought of as outmoded and which could result in less sophisticated provision creeping in with
higher overall system costs.
The next question is how this can be commissioned? There is no single way to do this, but taking
into account many of the issues that arise through this document, one solution is the nascent
Accountable Care Organisation model that is being explored with partners across the area. This
would move away from a tariff-based model and allow the channelling of investment and expertise
to the best parts of the system – a clear synergy with the desire to develop care where it needs to
be, appropriate to patient needs and effective, that supports and encourages innovation through
collaboration.
The impact on the North Tyneside population will be exciting:
 Bringing healthcare closer to home, more accessible and convenient[12]
 Bringing proactive healthcare to the people who need it the most, and typically ask for it the
least [13]
 Managing complex co-morbidities and mental health with support from the specialists, but
primary focus on the whole patient through generalist delivery
 Urgent and extended hours care much closer to where people want it, in their communities
 Proactive work to improve the health of the population, more coordinated and more
effectively than at present
What we need to do first
The CCG will work collaboratively with GP practices, TyneHealth, and other stakeholders to
implement this strategy. This means we will need to:
1) Set up a cross organisation programme board to provide oversight to the implementation of
this strategy.
2) Develop an implementation plan with defined actions and timescales for the four proposals
and workstreams, and identify resource to take this forward. It needs to be recognised that
one of the biggest challenges to implementation will be the capacity within general practice,
and the identification of dedicated fixed term resource to support practices to make these
changes would be beneficial.
3) Understand the current baseline of population demographics, capacity and demand in
general practice, funding and resources in the system, and the profile of local estates.
4) Understand the capacity for new models of care in each cluster, whether changes need to be
at practice, cluster, locality, whole Federation/CCG level or even wider to be viable.
5) Identify the new models for service delivery, including possible virtual hubs (and will these
rotate around practices?); extended primary care teams; specialist input nearer to the
patient; teams to deliver proactive care
6) Establish working relationships with NHS, other public service and independent sector/ third
sector providers which can collaborate to deliver the identified models of service delivery.
Gain agreement to change the flows of funding to improve the health of the population,
improve the delivery of care, and reduce costs overall.

As ever, the NHS is developing and adapting to the challenges of today and tomorrow. This is
unnerving at times, but it is also a massive opportunity for Primary Care to transform and assert
itself in future models that are being developed. We must not miss this chance for Primary Care,
GPs and the patients of North Tyneside.
Documents Cited
[1]. Stevens, S., Five Year Forward View, D.o. Health, Editor. 2014: London.
[2]. NHS England, General Practice Forward View. 2016, NHS England: NHS England. p. 60.
[3]. Porter, M.E. and E.O. Teisberg, Redefining health care : creating value-based competition on
results. 2006, Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. xvii, 506 p.
[4]. Commonwealth_Fund, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, 2014 Update: How the U.S. Health Care
System Compares Internationally, in Mirror, Mirror on the Wall. 2014. p. 32.
[5]. Davis, K., C. Schoen, and K. Stremikis, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of
the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally. 2010 Update. 2010, The
Commonwealth Fund. p. 34.
[6]. NHS Networks, Commissioning for Long Term Conditions. 2012, NHS Networks,.
[7]. Reilly, S., et al., Case management for people with long-term conditions: impact upon
emergency admissions and associated length of stay. Primary health care research &
development, 2011. 12(3): p. 223-36.
[8]. NHS, The NHS Constitution for England. 2015, Department of Health.
[9]. Addicott, R., Commissioning and contracting for integrated care. 2014, king's Fund. p. 62.
[10]. GP Workforce and S. Plint, Securing the Future GP Workforce: Delivering the Mandate on GP
Expansion. 2014, Medical Education England. p. 63.
[11]. Murphy, P., et al., North Tyneside Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. 2013, North Tyneside
CCG; North Tyneside Council. p. 48.
[12]. Tudor-Hart, J., The Inverse Care Law. Lancet, 1971. 1: p. 405-12.
[13]. Minney, H., Tudor Hart #2 - people who need halthcare the most, ask the least. 2006.

North Tyneside NHS Tripartite primary care strategy v1 7

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North Tyneside NHS Tripartite primary care strategy v1 7