Primary Care Network & Shared Administration

CCB PCN
Quote / Testimonial:

PCN stands for Primary Care Network and is a way of looking at the ways we work as a group. Our PCN is The Chippenham, Corsham and Box Primary Care Network, or CCB PCN for short.

Our PCN includes Rowden Surgery, Hathaway Surgery, Lodge Surgery, Porch Surgery and Box Surgery. It does not mean all of the practices are the same or that we are mixing, but it means we’re trying to work better together. We are still continuing our own way of working and nothing is changing regarding your doctor.

PCN Questions:

No, you are still registered at our Surgery. Your surgery and your doctor will stay the same. You won’t be seen at another surgery unless it is seen to be in your best interest. You might be seen by a Physiotherapist in another surgery or seen in any of the 5 surgeries within the PCN but you will continue to be registered at Rowden.
The purpose is to smooth the transitions between other local services. It should make it easier for us to work with other local providers, both for us (the surgery) and for you (the patient).
We also have Shared Administration which allows us to support each other (more details below). We currently have services available to our PCN patients which include our local Urgent Care Centre, First Contact Physiotherapists (FCPs) or the Living Well Team which is shared between our whole PCN.
We have a few different aims with this type or working. 
We’re want to focus our services with the whole of our community in mind.
We want to learn from each other and share the workload of our community.
It helps to keep us “Practice Led” which means we manage ourselves with the help of the higher governing bodies of the NHS (Local Representative Committees and Integrated Care Boards).

Non-urgent advice: Chippenham Corsham and Box Urgent Care Centre

The five practices that form the Chippenham Corsham and Box Primary Care Network established a Patient Service of an Urgent Care Centre which is based at New Road Surgery Chippenham.

We operate 08:00am to 18:30pm on each Monday and Friday. It provides a significant proportion of the urgent, on-the-day appointments currently provided by the 5 practices within the PCN.

The UCC utilises multi-disciplined teams resourced with Clinical Staff from both the Practices and their colleagues within the PCN.

The pathway is via patient contact with your own Practice where they can consider this service alongside other available options for their care.

The Partners of all Practices trust this alongside other approaches underway demonstrates to their patients a continuous commitment to develop services that enhance patient access and experience.

Non-urgent advice: Living Well Team

The Living Well Team recognises that a person’s health and wellbeing can be determined by a range of social, economic and environmental factors.

Social Prescribing looks to address a person’s needs in a holistic way, allowing the patient greater control of their health.

Referrals to the team can be made by clinicians, family members, or patients themselves by contacting the practice and asking to speak directly with the team.


Non-urgent advice: Shared Administration

There have been huge changes in primary care and increasingly the best person for you to see may not be your own GP, as we have other Health Care professionals that may be able to support you, for example a Nurse or Physiotherapist.

To enable us to work more closely together, we need to improve the way that we access our patients’ notes. From September 2020, we have adopted a process called “Shared Administration.”

This means that our Doctors, Health Care and Administrative staff, who work in our surgeries, will be able to access the notes of all of our patients in the surgeries across our PCN. We want to reassure you that even without sharing your clinical record, the NHS will still be able to provide the Health Care that you need. However, it will restrict the ways that we are able to provide that care. Examples include receiving same-day access to a physiotherapist working in another surgery in our PCN or being seen in our “Hot Hub” where we are reviewing any suspected COVID-19 patients in a separate, clean and safe environment.

Shared Administration Frequently Asked Questions

Shared Administration means are sharing our practice records with the other surgeries within our PCN.
This means that clinicians and authorised administrators will be able to access the notes of patients in all of the five practices across our Primary Care Network.
This streamlines how we access your health information and means you could have faster access to a physiotherapist in another practice in our network, have support from our Living Well Team or be seen at our Urgent Care Centre.
You can opt out. It is entirely optional to choose not to take part and we will not making this mandatory for patients at Rowden. Even without sharing your record, the NHS will still be able to provide the care that you need. However, it might mean you miss out on this extra form of streamlined care. If you choose not to take part please contact us on 01249 444343 or [email protected].
We still have very strict rules in place around who can access patient notes and we will still have all of the same confidentiality rules in place across every surgery. It just means this access will be available for authorised staff working within the other surgeries too.