Over 100 extra staff boost access to treatment
WHAT services do the new primary care health professionals offer?
So far, Barnsley PCN has recruited over 100 additional members of staff to provide patients with boosted access to treatment. Four of these new roles include:
Care Navigators: our care navigators are specially trained, experienced receptionists who take a bit of extra time to ask patients booking an appointment a few extra questions about their requirements.
By doing this, they help patients to better understand the options available to them, given their particular circumstances, and can then signpost them to exactly the right sources of help, advocacy or support – which is not necessarily a GP.
Patients might, for example, be directed to a community pharmacist, a first contact physio, a health and wellbeing coach or a social prescriber.
With the help of our specially trained ‘Care Navigator’ receptionists, patients
are more likely to see the right person the first time round and usually get an appointment sooner than if they waited to see a GP.
Health and Wellbeing Coaches: BHF’s health and wellbeing coaches are trained to use their coaching skills to support people develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to become active participants in their own care.
This means the patients benefit from staying informed, engaged and motivated to identify their own needs and achieve their own health and wellbeing goals.
Health and Wellbeing Coaches typically see people for a number of regular sessions in order to plan, progress and review any changes and challenges, and to keep people on track to meet their goals.
Our Coaches can also provide people with access to self-management education, peer support and social prescribing, depending on their needs.
Social Prescriber Link Workers: social prescribing connects people with a range of non-clinical programmes services and events in their local community, such as walking groups, mental health counselling, employability skills and health lifestyle support.
The service has been designed based on the theory that people’s health is influenced by a range of social, economic and environmental factors.
So, if someone is feeling under pressure about a non-medical issue in their life, our prescribers’ role is to provide personalised support that helps to get things manageable again, thereby improving morale, mood and health outcomes. People usually attend 12 weekly sessions – but this can change according to need.
First Contact Physio: historically, MSK conditions make up to 30 per cent of a GP’s caseload, rising to 50 per cent for patients aged over 75.
Yet research tells us that 85 per cent of these patients do not actually need to see a GP. This is why our primary care managers are choosing to bring physiotherapists into their practice teams for their MSK patients.
By being directed straight to a physio, patients can benefit from quicker, easier diagnosis and treatment.
They can also be guided in self-managing their conditions more effectively, recovering faster and getting back to their normal mobility much sooner.