Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support Primary Care Networks to deliver improved access to community-based and preventative care.

Primary care networks (PCNs) build on existing primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated, and more integrated health and social care for our communities. The introduction of PCNs helps to deliver economies of scale, boost capacity, and improve access. The PCN contract, the Network Contract DES, which determines the funding PCNs receive and the services they provide, is discussed with the General Practitioners Committee (GPC) of the British Medical Association as part of annual general practice contract consultation between the Department, NHS England, and the GPC.

Community health services are an essential building block in developing a neighbourhood health service, working closely with primary care, social care, and other services. To support the shift to neighbourhood health, we have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits for community health services. By 2028/29 at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks. In addition, systems have been asked to increase the capacity of community health service to meet growth in demand and to work to standardise provision of core services.