GP Practices and Primary Care Networks

Your local GP practice provides a wide range of health services, including medical advice, vaccinations, examinations and treatment, prescriptions for medicines, referrals to other health services and social services.

There are a range of professionals who can look after you. You may be offered an appointment with one of the new roles in general practice such as an advanced nurse practitioner, physiotherapist, or clinical pharmacist rather than a GP.

This appointment may take place face-to-face in your practice, on the telephone, via video call, or sometimes in another local community setting.

Primary Care Networks, also known as Neighbourhoods, build on the core of current primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care.

Clinicians describe this as a change from reactively providing appointments to proactively care for the people and communities they serve. Where emerging Primary Care Networks are in place in parts of the country, there are clear benefits for patients and clinicians.

Primary Care Networks are based on GP registered lists, typically serving natural communities of around 30,000 to 50,000. They should be small enough to provide the personal care valued by both patients and GPs, but large enough to have impact and economies of scale through better collaboration between practices and others in the local health and social care system.

Our 10 Primary Care Networks in North West Surrey are shown on the map below.