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The passing of the July 2019 deadline for all GPs to align with a Primary Care Network (PCN) sees us entering a new era of UK healthcare provision. PCNs are tasked with facilitating the collaboration of all primary healthcare providers to deliver services tailored for local population communities of between 30-50,000 patients. This seismic shift in the process for local delivery of primary care is one of the cornerstones of the NHS long term plan, with multimillion pound-investment supporting the creation of around 1,400 PCNs nationwide.

As with any major change, it will take time to establish exactly how the new structure will work and how each provider of primary care services will engage with the PCN to achieve the best outcome. One of the main challenges for all sectors will be striking the balance between local delivery and achieving consistency, when there are so many individual PCNs.