Eight new GP-centred ‘Neighbourhoods’ to provide health and social care

Richmond Road Medical Centre is an award-winning GP practice in Hackney

Hackney and City of London is to be split into eight new ‘Neighbourhoods’ centred around GP practices which look after between 30,000 to 50,000 people, councillors were told last night (Tuesday 24 July).

The Health in Hackney Scrutiny Commission heard the latest progress from City & Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) on a new way of providing for health and social care for residents.

Councillors quizzed the CCG’s representatives on the progress of the new so-called “Neighbourhood Model” of health and social care provision, asking how the new areas would be able to identify specific healthcare needs on their patches.

Dr Stephanie Coughlin, local GP and Clinical Lead for Neighbourhoods at the GP Confederation, said: “We see the [Neighbourhood] map as including not just GP practices in the future, but also being based around community assets and centres that would feed into it.

“Residents will be a key part and a key driver of the new model. Medical care contributes to only about 11 per of patient welfare, so the exciting part is determining the identities of the Neighbourhoods.”

Nina Griffith, City & Hackney CCG’s Workstream Director – Unplanned Care, said: “We want to galvanise our wider social capital across the borough. The Neighbourhood Model will be working initially around health and care provision, but we also want to improve health outcomes and achieve a higher standard of patient care.

“This is a long-term way of engaging with communities differently. Working from GPs’ registered population lists, these give you an understanding of what the local health needs are.”

The design of the new Neighbourhoods has been worked up around evidence deriving from the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC) Primary Care Home model.

The idea is to make areas large enough to provide the scale to provide a range of services, while remaining small enough to understand and respond to specific health and care needs within each area.

A business case to develop the plan in City and Hackney was given the thumbs-up by the City and Hackney Integrated Commissioning Partnership Boards last year (December 2017).

Just over £800,000 was doled out from the Hackney and City Better Care Funds for the first year of the project.

Primary Care Leads have now been appointed for seven of the eight Neighbourhoods.

Eight Neighbourhood-wide training sessions are being held this month (July), with the full roll-out of the scheme planned for 2019/20.

Cllr Benjamin Hayhurst (Lab, Hackney Central), chairing the meeting, said: “For £800,000 of seed money, you’d want to see specific objectives or targets laid out, which hopefully we can see at our next meeting.”