Since the NHS was created in 1948, the population has grown and people are living longer. Many people are living with long term conditions such as diabetes and heart disease or suffer from mental health issues and may need to access their local health services more often.
To meet these needs, GP practices are working together with the other GP Practices in their surrounding area to build on existing primary care services and enable a greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care for people close to home.
There are 1,250 PCNs across England, typically serving natural communities of between 30,000 to 50,000 people (with some flexibility). They are small enough to provide the personal care valued by both people and GPs, but large enough to have impact and economies of scale through better collaboration between GP practices and others in the local health and social care system.
