HEE ROADMAP THE PRACTICE 27
W H AT ’ S H A P P E N I N G O N T H E G R O U N D ?
Pathway to primary care HEE’s Roadmaps to Practice set out a development pathway for podiatrists looking to take up roles in primary care – as encouraged by the NHS Long Term Plan, which aims to provide more integrated and collaborative healthcare.
I
n recent years, before the pandemic, there has been a significant policy focus across all governments in the UK to shift the balance of care from secondary care to primary and communitybased care settings (NHS, 2019). This shift has brought with it a significant change in where and how resources are spent. Increased funding is now available to support the uptake of roles within primary care by health professionals who have previously worked in other sectors, following a change to the national GP Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) 2020/21 (NHS England, 2020). Through the subsequent roll-out of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), podiatrists, paramedics, occupational therapists, dieticians and physiotherapists are funded by a national scheme to support the uptake and implementation of these allied health professional (AHP) roles into primary care, thereby meeting the workforce development set out in the DES
at no additional local cost (BMA and NHS, 2019). To support the introduction of new AHP roles into primary care, Health Education England (HEE) has launched a national multiprofessional training scheme (HEE, 2021a). The scheme, summarised in the Roadmaps to Practice series of documents, sets out a standardised training and development pathway, provides training resources, and signposts trainees to achieve role verification and accreditation with the HEE Centre for Advancing Practice. The podiatry profession has an unprecedented opportunity to use the national funding, infrastructure and training support available to engage in primary care and contribute our expertise, thereby positively impacting population health across health and care sectors (College of Podiatry [CoP], 2020). There has arguably never been a better opportunity to influence, integrate and impact foot health across the whole health and care system.
DR LINDSEY CHERRY is senior clinical academic at the University of Southampton and Solent NHS Trust. She is also HEE’s AHP adviser for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Primary Care Training Hub
LAWRENCE AMBROSE is head of policy and public affairs at the College
The changing primary care landscape Primary care networks (PCNs) have been developed in England to bring general practices together within a local area so they can work at scale (NHS England, 2021). The development of PCNs is a key part of the NHS Long Term Plan (NHS, 2019) and builds upon existing primary care services to enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care that is also closer to home for patients. PCNs therefore enable GPs to provide a wider range of services to their communities and to integrate into the broader health and care system. There are 1250 PCNs in England, each with an average population size of 48,000 people. More than 99% of general practices are part of a PCN, which then signs up to the DES, detailing core requirements and system-wide entitlements (NHS, 2021). The newly formed integrated care systems (ICS) offer a way to plan and organise the provision of health and care services in England at a larger scale than PCNs could (NHS England, 2018). Every ICS will ensure that PCNs work with other community staff and use multidisciplinary teams across primary and community care, feeding in and out of secondary care as appropriate. The overall aim is to provide a more integrated system, reduce competition within healthcare provision, and provide service users with a more navigable system than is currently in place (NHS England, 2018). Private practice providers will continue to offer an additional J U LY/AU G U ST 2 0 2 1 T H E P O D I AT R I ST
27-29 practice roadmap_THE PODIATRIST JULY AUG_Podiatry Now.indd 27
22/06/2021 12:50
