The good news is that £43.5m has been released nationally to support PCN development. This is new money for PCNs, and according to the guidance is “a floor not a ceiling”. The money can only be used for PCN development or PCN Clinical Director (CD) development. “Around 10% of the funds are intended for CD specific development” (expected to be £3,000 – £4,000 per CD).

The process for accessing the funding is relatively straightforward. PCNs are to self-assess their current needs in September, and determine how they want to develop in a support plan. The PCN Maturity Matrix (here) or local version thereof is to be used for this self-assessment. PCNs are also to identify “a specific service improvement priority to focus on as a means for closer collaboration”.

6 development support “domains” have been identified that the guidance suggests PCNs will want to access as they work on their agreed priority: PCN set-up and support, organisational development and change, leadership development and support, supporting collaborative working (MDTs), population health management, and social prescribing and asset based community development.

The PCN identified support plan has to be agreed by “ICSs/STPs, places, CCGs, PCN CDs and other system partners”. In practice for the majority of places this means the CCG and the PCN CD have to agree it. The support is to be mobilised in October. Then “systems and CCGs support PCNs to review progress against PCN priorities and self-assessment” once the support is in place through to March.

There is a parallel process for systems to work with the new PCN CDs to identify their individual and collective development needs and develop tailored plans with support requirements. Once that support has commenced, “with support from systems, PCN CDs review progress against priorities. Areas for additional support identified, revised development plan produced”.

So there is a huge opportunity for PCNs to access a significant chunk of funding that can support the member practices and their work together. There is a risk that accessing the funding becomes the mechanism by which the system exerts management control (i.e. the PCN cannot have the funding unless it is operating in the way in which the system wants it to), and the joint review of progress between the PCN CDs and the system become performance management meetings. But this risk can be mitigated, and the amount of development funding mean it is worth jumping through a few hoops to access it. The key is keeping control of the agenda (which I have written about previously) – if the PCN is clear what it wants to achieve, then this whole process can be worked as an enabler for that.

My main advice to PCNs thinking about their development needs is to differentiate between the internal and external needs. By internal needs, I mean the needs of the member practices, the strength of the relationships between the member practices, and the ability of the practices to work effectively together and deliver services. By external needs, I mean the ability of the PCN to work collaboratively with community services and other teams, to understand the local population health needs, and to be and active partner within the wider STP/ICS system.

I think it is important to prioritise the internal needs first. If practices cannot work together, support each other, agree on priorities, and make changes to delivery across practices, the PCN is very unlikely to be successful. This joint working between the practices is the bedrock of PCN success. All other things will follow if this is in place. So my advice is to prioritise working on the internal needs first, even if both practices (because it can be difficult and threatening) and the system (because they want to widen the focus of PCNs) want more of the initial energy focussed on the external needs.