Cambrian Primary Care North Ceredigion GP Federation

Cambrian Primary Care is a new GP federation which includes the seven GP practices in North Ceredigion. It has been formed so that they can work together to develop services for patients, share skills between the surgeries, jointly employ staff and provide strengthened general practice services in Mid Wales.

There are many challenges facing the current model of general practice which includes the recruitment and retention of GPs and nurses, the changing nature of delivering medical care, an aging frail population with multiple chronic conditions and public sector austerity. By developing different ways of working together and delivering services jointly, patients will be able to see a greater number of different types of health care professionals in their home or local surgery. These different healthcare professionals will include nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, paramedics and physicians associates who will often see patients from more than one surgery.

The seven GP Practices who have formed Cambrian Primary Care are:

• Borth Surgery
• Church Surgery
• Llanilar Health Centre
• Padarn Surgery
• Tanyfron Surgery
• Tregaron Surgery
• Ystwyth Medical group

An important part of working together is to make sure that all the staff who are treating patients are able to access the appropriate clinical record. From 12^th June a computer system will be in place called Vision 360 which will allow the GP to share a patient’s information with staff working within any GP practice in North Ceredigion The information will only be shared with the patient’s consent and will help those involved to provide better and safer healthcare.

The staff in a patient’s own surgery will also be able to make an appointment to see a health care professional working in a different surgery using Vision 360. The record of the treatment that a patient has received in a different surgery will also be recorded in their clinical record so that it is available for the clinical staff in thier own surgery to see.

Dr Sue Fish from Borth Surgery and Co-chair of Cambrian Primary Care said ‘ This is an exciting opportunity for the GP practices in North Ceredigion to work together to develop new services which will meet the needs of our patients better. Being able to share a patient’s clinical information is an important part of making sure that all care is safe and of a high quality. However if anyone does not wish their information to be shared outside of their GP surgery they can contact their own surgery to complete an opt-out form’.