Primary Care Networks - what's the implication for Pharma?

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Primary Care Networks – what’s the implication for Pharma?

19th February 2020 | Andrew Norman

The change announced to the structure of GPs surgeries across the UK means that pharma companies will need to align their market access strategies to the working principles of the new networks. Inspiremed can help.

“Primary care networks (PCNs) are an important part of the NHS long-term plan and bring general practices together to work at scale. Since 1 July 2019, all except a handful of GP practices in England have come together to form around 1,300 geographical networks.”
(The King’s Fund)

Is your market access strategy aligned?

The important implication of the new PCN groupings of surgeries for pharma is that as they begin to provide patients with a greater depth of services, each network will have a number of key decision-makers.

With approximately 1,300 PCNs in England covering patient populations of around 30,000 to 50,000, the change means that pharma companies will need to align their market access strategies to the working principles of the new networks.

NHS England’s aim for the new PCNs is to provide “more preventive healthcare to vulnerable groups” (Guardian) from April 2020 and this will include the provision of many of the commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan.

“From 2020 there will be the potential for additional funding of new services in line with the aims set out in the NHS Long Term Plan. These include medications review, supporting early cancer diagnosis and cardiovascular disease prevention and diagnosis.”
(BMA)

Eventually, PCNs will be required to deliver a set of seven national service specifications. In April 2020 the first five will begin, and include:

Structured medication reviews
Enhanced health in care homes
Anticipatory care (with community services)
Personalised care
Supporting early cancer diagnosis

The remaining two specifications, cardiovascular disease case-finding and locally agreed action to tackle inequalities, will start by 2021.

With PCNs set to receive specific funding for clinical pharmacists in 2019/20, and pharmacists taking on an expanded role at the heart of local primary care networks across the country, there’s evidently going to be a focus on prescribing efficiency and social prescribing, (https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/social-prescribing) with structured medication reviews driven by cost efficiencies.

How can Inspiremed help pharma?

Mapping the key decision-makers within the new PCNs into market access analytics and segmentation models gives direct insight into how these groups are structured across CCGs and identifies the key stakeholders.

Our analytics can quickly help you with market access dynamics for this important and evolving NHS group.