Primary Care Networks

The NHS long term plan and the New Five Year Framework for the GP contract introduced Primary Care Networks (PCN) to bring general practices together to work at scale.

PCNs are made up of GP practices covering populations of 30 to 50 thousand patients. The majority of new primary care funding is going to come through these PCNs. The first PCN Directed Enhanced Service (DES) started in April 2020. This included an Early Cancer Diagnosis element.

February 2020 saw the launch of the Cancer Research UK GP Hub. The hub aims to provide information that will support GP practices and PCNs to deliver on their GP contract requirements for the early diagnosis of cancer. The hub is free to use and requires no registration as well as helpful information it signposts to additional resources, training and support. The hub can be accessed by clicking on the following link Cancer Research UK GP Hub.