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Home > Solutions > Primary Care Support > Primary Care Support – Who We Are

End to End business support for Primary Care

We can help you find the space and time you need to focus on improving care for patients.

How we can help to support and develop Primary Care Networks

We have a wealth of experience in supporting a diverse range of healthcare commissioners and providers.



End to End business support for Primary Care
How we can help to support and develop Primary Care Networks

End to End business support for Primary Care

Already providing a wide range of services and online tools to 1500 plus GP practices, we have the proven expertise to help you balance demands and deliver excellent patient care and experience.

As an organisation that is both of the NHS and for the NHS, our staff and culture are naturally aligned to your values.

We:

  • Bring together experts from across our services to offer blended support
  • Use bespoke tools we have developed in-house, as well as other nationally-accredited tools, to save our customers time and money
  • Focus on creating value – not profits – and delivering competitively priced, effective support at scale
  • Can help you when you need people quickly. Being an NHS employing authority means our employees are part of the NHS Pension Scheme and are covered by NHS terms and conditions.

 

High calibre project management – MLCSU – game changer


GP Dr Shana Tam, Chester

 

Find Me A Locum has taken the stress out of finding GP locums. It’s made it easy to fill our locum sessions quickly, with experienced, knowledgeable, reliable clinicians. I highly recommend this fabulous resource to practices.


Kirsty Moore, Practice Manager, Stoke-on-Trent

 

I have found PrimaryPoint most useful in completing the IG annual return. Once set up, the portal is easy to use and self-explanatory.


Katrina Dipple, Business Manager, Darwin Medical Practice

 

Our end-to-end services supporting Primary Care

We also support projects and short-term programmes with specialists from our Improvement Unit and Strategy Unit.

Our Digital Innovation Unit experts develop apps to improve patient care and efficiency and save money, for example Find me a Locum and Find me an S.12 Doctor. With a place on NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Framework for Digital Solutions for Sessional Clinical Capacity in Primary Care, our Find me a Locum solution is now even easier to procure.

Our primary care portal, PrimaryPoint, provides practices with fast and easy, 24/7 access to up-to-date, compliant policies, procedures, toolkits and other services.

 

How PrimaryPoint can save you time and help you stay organised

PrimaryPoint can reduce your workload and provide bespoke tools and guidance PrimaryPoint is an online portal which provides you with:

  • Fast and easy 24/7 access to up-to-date, compliant policies, procedures, toolkits and other services
  • Bespoke document templates personalised with your own practice name, practice manager and logo
  • Help to reduce day-to-day administration and to stay compliant with the latest legislation and best practice.

We recognise that every primary care organisation will face different challenges. MLCSU has a wealth of experienced subject
matter experts who will guide and advise you.
We can save time and money for your organisation

 

 
  • PrimaryPoint is designed to make adopting, updating and replacing your organisation’s
    policies and procedures as easy as possible – saving you both time and money.
  • This gives you the space and time you need to focus on improving care for patients.
PrimaryPoint provides a wealth of products and services What PrimaryPoint will offer:

  • Information governance
  • Human resources and organisational development
  • Finance

Coming soon:

  • Procurement
  • Communications and engagement
  • Clinical pharmacy and medicines optimisation
  • Business intelligence
  • Digital
  • Corporate services
  • PCN and Clinical Director Domain Support.

For more detail, please see the PrimaryPoint brochure.

 

How we can help you with medicines management

We can reduce your workload, giving you more time to focus on your patients Our clinical practice pharmacist service includes:

  • Prescribing clinics
  • Polypharmacy and care home patient reviews
  • Repeat prescribing system ordering reviews
  • Medicines information support
  • Community nurse and dietitian engagement
  • Resolution of medicine issues
  • Consulting with patients
  • professional supervision by a senior clinical pharmacist
We can help you improve patient care and experience

 

 

 Medication reviews carried out by our pharmacists:

  • Ensure patients are prescribed safe and appropriate medicines
  • Deal with drug and inhaler compliance issues
  • Address patient concerns
  • Receive positive feedback from patients
We can save you money Our medication reviews result in cost savings from:

  • De-prescribing unnecessary or harmful medicines
  • Switching drugs
  • Reducing quantities
  • Preventing unnecessary further treatment or hospital admission
We can give you assurance We:

  • Implement required information governance (IG) processes, with expert advice from MLCSU’s IG team
  • Ensure our professional staff are fully registered, appropriately trained, supported, skilled and capable to deliver the services required
  • Keep abreast of national policy updates and best practice
  • Share resources and lessons learnt
  • Undertake continual improvement reviews
We can give you resilience Our resilient and flexible service in turn gives you:

  • qualified and skilled cover for sickness or leave

[The CSU pharmacist] quickly integrated with the team and worked closely with the GP Partner to establish aims and develop the role. Feedback from patients was extremely positive. [She] always made appropriate changes to medication and prioritised patient safety. [She] also took into consideration the wider health needs of the patient… showed great attention to detail and was extremely professional at all times.


Jamie Ducker, Practice Manager, Western Avenue Medical Centre, Chester (where our 100-hour medication review resulted in 241 quality interventions and an additional 33 interventions saving over £800).

How our financial services can help you

We can relieve you from financial tasks, giving you more time to focus on your patients Our bespoke accounting services provide:

  • Zero-based budget setting exercise
  • Support with installation of a tailored computerised accounting system to record day-to-day income and costs
  • Production of management accounting reports of actual position against budget
  • Quarterly budget meetings
  • Support with projected year-end forecast financial position
We can give you assurance

 
  • An independent view supported by our strong track record
  • Early warning of any issues that need addressing

Our organisation grew rapidly over a fairly short period of time and we needed support in terms of setting up our ledger system and being able to report against projects to our Board of Directors. The CSU has given us the support we required to set up the systems so that we can report accurately and have sound financial projections for the future.


Ian Gibson, Associate Director of Operations & Services, North Staffordshire GP Federation.

How our business intelligence services can help you

We can highlight areas to focus on to improve services, processes and the health of your population Our business intelligence experts can set up your data flow, give you the support you need to use it effectively and provide reports.

  • Data insight, case finding, case management, wider determinants of health alignment, data mapping, benchmarking
  • Tailored reporting tool – Aristotle – risk stratification and segmentation, identifying at risk patients
  • Business change support – interpreting data, service change
  • Data flows and capture already set up in MLCSU footprint
We can give you assurance We:

  • Implement required information governance (IG) processes, with expert advice from MLCSU’s IG team, in particular data sharing agreements
  • Ensure our professional staff are fully registered, appropriately trained, supported, skilled and capable to deliver the services required
  • Keep abreast of national policy updates and best practice
  • Share resources and lessons learnt
  • Undertake continual improvement reviews
We can support you as you play your part in the wider health and care system
  • Our urgent care support system ‘OTiS Health Care’ – system-wide solution for urgent care management, including primary care
  • Strong track record in collaborative working and solutions
  • MLCSU network of contacts to support collaboration

Valuable in supporting the workshops, forming the basis of discussions and helping to inform development of a set of actions to address the frailty ‘gap’ across Walsall, which have now been drawn up into a RightCare logic model and embedded in the CCG’s three RightCare delivery plans for 19/20.


Louise Jones, Senior Commissioning Manager, Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group.

How we can help you with information management and technology

We can reduce your workload, giving you more time to focus on your patients
  • Change management to MSP/PRINCE 2 standards. Our experience includes clinical system changes, practice move, new build, ETTF bids
  • New working practices and improvement of existing processes, policy development
  • Strategy planning, set-up, integration and ongoing support of IT and digital services
  • Tech solutions to support DNA reduction
  • IT Maturity index
  • Clinical system optimisation and interoperability
  • Range of cloud-based knowledge and collaboration tools to improve productivity and communication
  • IT training, support and guidance, including for GP clinical systems and associated national systems
  • IT procurement/purchasing – including quotes, technical advice, payments, tender evaluations
  • Data quality services –  searches, reports, templates and protocols; implementation of data accreditation scheme including QoF indicators, case finding tools, digital maturity reporting, implementation of national standards (SNOMED)
We can improve your communication processes and data sharing
  • IP telephony/mobile solutions
  • Data sharing agreements
  • Primary Care IT Enabling Services (PCES) – Registration Authority, NHSmail support, Data Protection Officer support
We can keep you up to date with the latest technological developments
  • Web/mobile application development – secure, scalable. Our experience includes developing RESTFul APIs, HL7 clinical messaging interfaces, cloud-based deployments, proof of concept solutions
  • System design and set up, Data Collection & Reporting Service (DCRS), clinical workforce placement systems including the new STEP Skills Passport system
  • Website hosting and content management
We can help you improve patient care and experience
  • Online patient apps, video consultations
  • Marketing activity, patient engagement and awareness raising to support introduction of online patient services
  • Secure record sharing
We can give you assurance
  • We implement required information governance (IG) processes, including GDPR Toolkit, with expert advice from MLCSU’s IG team
We can give you resilience
  • Effective IM&T business continuity and disaster recovery processes

How we can help you with human resources and organisation development

We can help you with recruitment
  • Attracting candidates
  • Identifying contractual options
  • DBS and safer recruitment checks
We can help you be resilient
  • Temporary staffing solutions supporting interim requirements for workforce to meet demands, including support with bank staffing solutions
  • FindMeALocum app for finding and recruiting locums
We can help you retain staff

 

 
  • Staff health and wellbeing initiatives
  • Occupational health services
  • Staff survey
  • Staff awards and provision
  • Other support e.g. resilience training, mental health first aiders
We can improve your processes and working practices

 

 
  • HR Business partnering
  • ‘HR Health Check’ to identify areas for improvement and risks
  • Online PrimaryPoint portal providing HR policies and procedures
  • Service improvement and transformation as part of our Strategy Unit’s EPIC programme with up to six practices at a time
  • Employee relations support
  • Workforce planning
We can give you assurance
  • Policy development and regulatory compliance with a suite of policies based on best HR practice and current legislation

We:

  • Implement required information governance (IG) processes, with expert advice from MLCSU’s IG team
  • Keep abreast of national policy updates and best practice
  • Share resources and lessons learnt

Diagnostic work was offered to a practice in Staffordshire and one in Cheshire to provide a ‘HR Health Check’ which then outlined areas for improvement and risks within the organisations

How we can help you with procurement

We can reduce your workload, giving you more time to focus on your patients
  • Transitional support, including PO conversion, checks against Standing Financial Instructions (SFIs)
  • Help with bid writing where responding to procurements for new services or commissioning new services
  • Checking new service proposals before the procurement stage
  • Checking new business offers before procurement is concluded
We can save you money
  • Expert healthcare procurement support to obtain best value from new services, both clinical and non-clinical
  • Support to work across bigger areas increasing buying power to gain maximum efficiencies
We can give you assurance
  • Subject matter expertise and advice
  • Ensuring you are in line with national and legal procurement rules and best practice 

We procured a cutting-edge communications system for Worcestershire GPs

When GP surgeries across Worcestershire came together with a need to transfer their communication systems, they called on us to deliver a robust and tailored solution.

We held soft market testing events to gain intelligence on the viability of the outcomes required by the GP surgeries and to enthuse the potential marketplace. We used the Crown Commercial Services RM1045 framework to conduct a mini competition with specialist, motivated suppliers.

The commercial solution achieved the project’s aspirations and came in significantly below project budget, offering excellent value for money.

How we can help you with communications and engagement

We can help you engage with your patients
  • Build communication plans and support with best practice approaches to communication around service changes
  • Campaigns underpinned by research and intelligence to target communications and engagement activities to reach the right people
  • Mapping and identification of best ways to engage with stakeholders
  • Help to nurture effective patient participation groups (PPGs)
  • Surveys and events
  • Help with advertising new services including digital advertising, organising media channels to ensure that messages capture attention of different stakeholder groups
We can provide a user-friendly, cutting-edge website and intranet
  • Immediately available development tool for websites and intranets that are flexible for meeting evolving demands
We can help you with branding
  • Graphic designers working with you to develop branding for your practice
We can help you with recruitment
  • Experience of delivering specific recruitment campaigns to highlight the benefits of working in an area
We can give you assurance
  • We implement required information governance (IG) processes, with expert advice from MLCSU’s IG team
  • We ensure our engagement activities are in line with best practice and national guidance, including consultation requirements where appropriate

The CSU set up a digital platform with bespoke functionality and have successfully delivered a cutting edge, industry-leading website. We now have a website that is highly intuitive and recognises users by their geolocation and automatically directs them to the information most relevant to them… The CSU communications team delivered to our agreed timeframe, provided well thought out solutions and were always on hand to help when we needed them.


Sian Sansum, Head of Communications, The Modality Partnership.

How our corporate services can help you

We can reduce your workload, giving you more time to focus on your patients
  • Online PrimaryPoint portal providing 24/7 access to IG policies and procedures
  • Freedom of Information and Subject Access Request support
  • Preparing care homes for NHS.net sign up
  • Enhancement of information governance compliance policy with eDiscovery
  • Complaints/PALS service
  • Records management and storage, secure UK EMEA data centres
  • Proactive approach to potential security issues
  • Estates services, including appraisal for future development
  • Bespoke support e.g. support with debt management POA
  • Equality & inclusion, and human rights support and
  • training (face-to-face or online)
  • Annual policy development checks
  • Support with equality impact assessments
  • Advice line – phone and email (52 weeks, 9-5)
We can give you assurance
  • CQC readiness – pre-inspections, reports and advice
  • Data Protection Officer (DPO) support services with a named DPO and GP IG cover, remote support and tailored training sessions
  • Toolkit compliance
  • One of the largest providers of equality, diversity and human rights support to NHS
  • Access to best practice and up-to-date policy and legal requirements
  • Health & safety, resilience
  • Fire training and assessment
  • Business continuity support


End to End business support for Primary Care
How we can help to support and develop Primary Care Networks

How we can help to support and develop Primary Care Networks

We have a wealth of experience in supporting a diverse range of healthcare commissioners and providers. Our wide-ranging services are now used by primary care networks (PCNs) and GP federations as well as individual practices.

We have already supported successful establishment of six PCNs – one of those (Chester East PCN) has been held up as an exemplar by NHSE.

As an organisation that is both of the NHS and for the NHS, our staff and culture are naturally aligned to your values.

We:

  • Focus on creating value – not profits – and delivering competitively priced, effective support at scale
  • Bring together experts from across our services to offer blended support
  • Use bespoke tools we have developed in-house, as well as other nationally-accredited tools, to save our customers time and money
  • Can help you when you need people quickly. Being an NHS employing authority means our employees are part of the NHS Pension Scheme and are covered by NHS terms and conditions.

We are supporting PCNs to deliver the six national development domains:

  • Set up
  • Organisation development
  • Leadership development
  • Collaborative working (multi-disciplinary / agency / change management)
  • Population Health Management
  • Asset-based community development and social prescribing

 

Exemplar PCN. The way everything was organised from finances to workstreams was excellent.


Charlotte Fisher, NHS England, on behalf of Mersey Internal Audit Agency (regarding Chester East PCN, one of the six PCNs we have already helped to set up)

 

How we can help you develop your primary care network

We can manage the process of change for you so you can focus on your priorities
  • Experts with experience of change management and establishing primary care networks (PCNs)
  • Additional capacity and capability, ie project management
  • Tailored support
We can help you improve patient care by safe sharing of records and ensure you are up to date with legal standards and requirements, giving you assurance

 

 
  • Experts in governance and information governance
  • Data Sharing Agreements to support integration of shared records
  • Data Protection Officer (DPO) support, named DPO
  • Training
  • Online PrimaryPoint portal providing policies and procedures
  • Inter-practice agreements
We can improve your efficiency and save you valuable time by providing a shared platform for documents and safe messaging
  • Experts in information management and technology
  • Primary Care IT Enabling Services – Registration Authority
  • NHSmail support
We can highlight areas to focus on to improve services, processes and the health of your population
  • Experts in business intelligence
  • GP practice and PCN primary care data flows
  • Aristotle data and reporting tool
  • OTiS Primary Care tool
We can manage recruitment and resourcing for you – increasing capacity and freeing up your time so you can focus on your patients
  • Experts in human resources and marketing
  • Workforce planning and Organisational Development
  • Attracting candidates – recruitment campaigns
  • Identifying contractual options
  • Regularly updated bespoke policies via online portal
We can relieve you from financial reporting and control tasks, give you assurance and enable you to make informed projections
  • Experts in financial management
  • Independent overview and analysis of finance
  • Support to PCN Lead Nominated Practice under Directed Enhanced Service (DES) requirements
We can help you gain support of your members, staff, system partners and, most importantly, your patients
  • Experts in communications and engagement
  • Websites and intranets
  • Campaigns, service change consultations, surveys
  • Awareness raising

Exemplar PCN. The way everything was organised from finances to workstreams was excellent.


Charlotte Fisher, NHS England, on behalf of Mersey Internal Audit Agency (regarding Chester East PCN, one of the six PCNs we have already helped to set up).

We received excellent support … advice was hands-on, thorough and timely which was a huge help in terms of the timescales we had for getting the project started. As a federation we also purchase our Data Protection Officer service from the CSU as do most of our member GP practices – to support that there is training available and a regular newsletter so that we are operationally aware of what we need to do and any new requirements.


Ian Gibson, Associate Director of Operations & Services, North Staffordshire GP Federation (regarding our IG assistance for a homeless project).

How we can help your primary care network

We can manage the process of change for you so you can focus on your priorities
  • Experts with experience of change management and developing primary care networks (PCNs)
We can help you build flourishing teams across your network so all involved are inspired, motivated and effectively delivering patient care
  • Experts in organisation and leadership development
  • An ‘academy’ approach linking learning and development
  • Coaching
We can help you forge relationships with system partners to ensure maximum benefit for your population
  • Strong track record in facilitating, developing and maintaining system relationships
  • MLCSU network of contacts
We can ensure your data services meet national standards, giving you assurance
  • Experts in information management and technology
  • Data quality services
  • Data accreditation scheme including Quality and Outcomes Framework indicators
  • Case finding tools and digital maturity reporting
  • Implementation of national standards
We can highlight areas to focus on to improve services, processes and the health of your population
  • Experts in business intelligence
  • Aristotle data and reporting tool
  • Data interface with national PCN dashboard
We can keep you compliant with equality and inclusion guidance, and ensure any service change takes account of the needs of each section of your population
  • Experts in equality and Inclusion
  • Policy development
  • Advice line
  • Service change impact assessments

The EPIC programme has created a format and an environment for change. The practice has been going through a lot of change, change is difficult. EPIC has given us some tools we will roll again and again to manage change in the future.


Dudley GP practice participant in EPIC, the local primary care development programme created and run by our Strategy Unit, which evaluated well (empowering staff and improving relationships with local partners as well as saving costs).

How we can help you with leadership development

We can give your leaders the knowledge and skills they need to inspire all involved to deliver the best possible outcome for patients
  • Experts in leadership development
  • Leadership Academy for clinical and non-clinical leaders
  • Individual and group coaching
  • Practical skills and knowledge to deliver behaviour change
  • Enabling approach using best practice and evidence-based tools
We can help your leaders develop the strategic skills required to be an effective system partner
  • Strong track record of facilitating development in context of system relationships
  • Developing and nurturing trusting relationships
  • Leading equality and inclusion
  • Community asset strengthening
  • Engagement and communication skills
We can help your leaders develop the personal skills required to steer your network
  • Dealing with conflict
  • Collaborative leadership
  • Leading challenging conversations
  • Managing change
We can ensure those stepping into new leadership roles have the essential management skills to maximise performance
  • Project management
  • Using data
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Assertiveness
  • Building a business case

The workshop was attended by staff and senior leaders from all parts of the Dudley Health and Social Care System. All participants were provided with an opportunity to broaden their minds and to think of the possible as well as what may have felt like the impossible. Every person that attended has spoken of the value of the intervention and the outcomes will now be used as we continue to implement our new model of care in Dudley. The Strategy Unit team did an absolutely fantastic piece of work.


Stephanie Cartwright, Director of Organisational Development, Transformation and Human Resources, Dudley Clinical Commissioning Group.

How we can help you with collaborative working

We can manage the process of change for you so you can focus on your priorities
  • Experts with experience of change management and organisation development
  • Additional capacity and capability
  • Tailored support
  • Access to best practice benchmarking
  • Sharing good practice from across the area we cover
  • Horizon scanning
We can help you improve patient care by effective collaborative working

 

 
  • Strong track record in collaborative working and solutions
  • Lean thinking, Six Sigma techniques and outside-the-box thinking to develop transformational solutions
  • Supporting integration for multi-agency delivery
  • Helping to implement the model of care
  • MLCSU network of contacts to support collaboration
  • Developing and nurturing trusting relationships
We can highlight areas to focus on to improve services, processes and the health of your population
  • Experts in business intelligence
  • Aristotle data and reporting tool for case finding and case management
We can help you improve patient care by safe sharing of records and ensure you are up to date with legal standards and requirements, giving you assurance
  • Experts in information governance
  • Data Sharing Agreements to support integration of shared records

During our Planned Care project in Staffordshire, it was clear we needed to forge much stronger relationships across a number of organisational boundaries and change cultural thinking. The CSU has been instrumental in helping us put clinical engagement at the centre of our work. Organising, facilitating and designing workshops to gain insight and involvement; the CSU also invited guest clinicians to share learning. This was not an easy process but together we worked hard to share expertise and design pathways to bring real benefits to patients.


Mark Seaton, Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent STP planned care workstream programme lead.

How we can help you with population health management

We can highlight areas to focus on to support the prevention agenda and improve the health of your population
  • Experts in business intelligence
  • Aristotle data and reporting tool for case finding and case management
  • Stratified data on population heath – by practice, by network
  • Mapping, for example of long-term condition hotspots
  • Data flows and capture already set up within MLCSU’s footprint
We can help you ensure your services are fit for the future
  • Data benchmarking to compare, risk stratify, futureproof and understand wider determinants of health
  • Access to national policy and development thinking, and best practice
We can free up your time so that you can focus on your clinical priorities
  • Practical support to populate the new primary care network dashboard, interpret results and provide solutions

Valuable in supporting the workshops, forming the basis of discussions and helping to inform development of a set of actions to address the frailty ‘gap’ across Walsall, which have now been drawn up into a RightCare logic model and embedded in the CCG’s three RightCare delivery plans for 19/20.


Louise Jones, Senior Commissioning Manager, Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group.

How we can help you with social prescribing and asset-based community development

We can help you through the intricacies of working with non-NHS partners, ensuring you are compliant with regulations and producing the best service for your patients
  • A partnership route to the voluntary sector to provide an end-to-end social prescribing and community asset based solution
  • MLCSU can hold contracts with the voluntary sector on your behalf
  • Digital solutions enabling easier and more resilient process and service delivery
  • Experience of partnership working with voluntary and community sector
  • Access to relevant expertise and solutions
  • Contracting guidance for engaging social prescribing link workers
  • Support from our information governance experts for setting up compliant social prescribing referral and monitoring processes

Case study

We helped a Cheshire PCN to build a ‘Compassionate Communities’, one-stop, multi-agency, interactive website and Facebook group.

  • We engaged patients in the design of the website for Nantwich and Rural Care Community
  • A partnership route to the voluntary sector produced an end-to-end social prescribing solution
  • Digital solutions supported referral management