Heartbeat: Collaboration with local GP partnerships announced
January 23, 2019
As Chief Executive, Toby Lewis announced in his Friday message earlier this month, we have been successful in a bid to secure an Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contract to run GP services in our area in collaboration with local GP partnerships.
Toby explained: “Our Trust believes in partnership and in diversity. So we will work at scale with primary care in our networks and alliances across Ladywood, Perry Barr and Sandwell. And we will continue to create deep working relationships with valued GP colleagues through mechanisms like these APMS contracts. The new arrangements are a chance to do, to learn and to build trust. We want to move fast to provide the very best long term conditions care for children and for adults that redefine traditional home and hospital boundaries.”
The contract takes effect on 1 April 2019. We’re working with two partners – Your Health Partnership across Sandwell and Broadway Health Centre in Birmingham – to deliver primary care services to approximately 16,000 patients from Great Bridge Health Centre, Parsonage Street and Summerfield GP Practice.
Dr Simon Mitchell, Executive Partner at Your Health Partnership said: “Your Health Partnership is delighted to have the opportunity to work with the hospital Trust to deliver primary care services in West Bromwich. We have a well-established relationship with the Trust and believe the opportunity to work together in this way will create lots of exciting new ways to improve the health of the patients whilst continuing to deliver great quality general practice.”
This new contract offers the potential to shape primary healthcare provision locally. Working with our partners, we’ll embrace the opportunity to work differently which may see some patients having their care delivered by consultants in a primary care setting, and seeing increased consultant-led clinics opening closer to home, at their GP surgery.
For many patients, they will see the benefit of having almost all their NHS services (with the exception of mental health) delivered by one organisation that includes, primary care, acute and community services. The opportunity to build a meaningful data set for the patients registered with the health centres, will give insight into whether new ways of working improve health outcomes.
Dr Imran Zaman, GP at Broadway Healthcare Centre, said: “I am a firm believer that healthcare should be delivered as a whole and that’s why I’m very excited with this opportunity as it will deliver the integrated care model that we have always been talking about.
“I’m thankful to everyone who has been involved in making this partnership happen. Over the next couple of months and indeed in years to come, I hope that patients and staff will see the difference that this opportunity brings.”
Dr Manir Aslam, GP at Broadway Healthcare Centre, added: “We’ve been really fortunate to collaborate with the Trust to deliver this truly integrated care model.
“This partnership has tremendous benefits for patients and means that there will be joined-up services, where treatment plans will be designed by generalists from primary care, specialists from the Trust and our patients.
“We will definitely see a more seamless pathway for patients so they can be seen quicker and treated more effectively. From my point of view, this partnership shows the true meaning of integration and that’s the future of our healthcare service.”