Encouraging progress is being made through our Primary Care and Mental Health Transformation Programme since our last Pulse update in June. In this edition we look at the latest developments in three key areas of the programme that are improving patient access to general practice.

Right Person, First time

General Practice and Community Redesign is exploring how a multi-disciplinary team approach will improve access for patients to health services, maximising the contribution of all health and social care professionals in  delivering the ‘right person, first time’ outcome for patients.

This includes a team of nine trainee Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANPs) recently recruited for the first time by NHS Lanarkshire to support primary care. ANPs are very experienced nurses who are working towards completing a competency framework that will support and evidence their learning in an Advanced Nursing Practice. Six out the nine Lanarkshire trainees are currently qualified to prescribe and the remaining three will be qualified by February.

Maria Docherty, Director of Nursing, South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership said: “The role of the ANP is an extremely valuable one in terms of the contribution they can make to transforming primary care. In order to deliver primary care services in future we will draw on the strengths of advanced practice across a number of disciplines including nursing, AHPs, Pharmacy.”

Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapists (APPs) based within GP Practices is another new healthcare discipline currently being tested in East Kilbride. The APP is the first point of contact for any patient with musculoskeletal problems providing initial assessment, advice, prescribing medication if required, and referring to other treatments.

Pharmacists in Practice

Over 30 additional pharmacists have been recruited to support general practice across Lanarkshire. The initiative is part of the Pharmacists in Practice workstream in a bid to test the impact of having pharmacy staff as part of the general practice team. This includes pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.

The Pharmacists in Practice role is a developing one which will work directly with GP practices in the support and care of patients with long-term conditions, medicines reconciliation and the clinical review of acute medicines requests. This will enable GPs to spend more time with patients on the things only a GP can help with.

Feedback from practices is extremely positive. Jacqueline Summers, Branchalwood Practice Manager, said: “Having a pharmacist as part of the practice is a great support to both clinical staff and the wider practice team. As well as reviewing patients’ medicine, our pharmacist here in Houldsworth liaises  with care homes and community pharmacists – all work previously done by either GPs, nurses or   reception staff. We really would love to see this continue.”

As the role develops, the plan is to run pharmacist clinics, including telephone consultations, to do medicine reviews with patients, including high risk medication and polypharmacy. The clinics should result in greater patient knowledge of how to use medication and better self-management of long-term conditions.

The initiative also includes training practice staff to signpost patients to pharmacists, both in practice and in the community.

Mental Health and Wellbeing

Our mental health work stream is testing new ways to support general practice with patients suffering mental health illness.

From training pharmacy staff as mental health champions to employing two mental health nurses in the out-of-hours service, positive in-roads are being made to ensure the right support is available in the heart of the community.

And, in a partnership initiative with the Scottish Association for Mental Health and North Lanarkshire Council, seven Mental Health Link Workers are being funded to support general practice.

Mental Health Link Workers help people to identify positive wellbeing changes they can make in their lives, working closely with external agencies to co-ordinate a support plan to achieve identified wellbeing goals.

Dr Linda Findlay, Associate Medical Director South Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “Mental health issues make up a significant amount of a GP’s workload, particularly in deprived areas. Some of these cases don’t need to be seen by a GP. They can be managed just as effectively with the right support and advice from a mental health care specialist.

“This involves a holistic approach, looking at social, leisure, personal care and employment, all of which impact on good mental health for all of us.”

Navigating transformation

You can now find out more about the Primary Care and Mental Health Transformation Programme, its workstreams and the key movers and shakers on FirstPort. The new pages are in the ‘Programmes and Projects’ section under ‘Resources’.

The aim is to ensure that all employees know what’s happening with transforming primary care, when it’s happening and how, to determine the relevancy to their job and the work they do.

Look out for #TransformLanPC on social media for the latest updates.