Advanced Clinical Practitioner
Advanced clinical practitioners come from a range of professional backgrounds such as nursing, pharmacy, paramedics and occupational therapy. They are healthcare professionals educated to Master’s level and have developed the skills and knowledge to allow their scope of practice to better meet the needs of the people they support and care for.
Advanced Practice
Advanced practice is a level of practice in which a practitioner has demonstrated their ability to work autonomously at a high level (level 7/ Masters level) across all four pillars of advanced practice.
Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme
The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme entitles Primary Care Networks to access funding to support recruitment across reimbursable roles such as – clinical pharmacists, social prescribing link workers, physician associates, physiotherapists and paramedics.
These roles are integral to delivering the NHS Long Term plan ambition for personalised care as well as shift care to a more holistic model. The intention of the scheme is to grow additional capacity through new roles, and by doing so, help to solve the workforce shortage in general practice.
The scheme provides reimbursement of the salary for the new roles being recruited into general along with certain other costs such as employer pension and national insurance contributions.
Balint Session
A Balint group is a purposeful, regular meeting among family physicians, with a trained facilitator or leader, to allow discussion of any topic (or case study) that occupies a clinician’s mind outside of his or her usual clinical encounters.
A Care Coordinator’s responsibilities include consulting with patients and determining their needs, developing an individualised plan of action that includes coordination between all parties involved in providing the best possible patient care. The Care Coordinator works as part of the multi-disciplinary team to help support people, in particular the frail/elderly and those with long term conditions.
Certificate of Completion of Training
Certificate that medical doctors receive to indicate that they have completed an approved training programme in the UK and are therefore eligible for entry onto the specialist or GP register.
Community Education Facilitation Lead
Community Education Facilitation (CEF) is a fundamental part of the Kent & Medway Primary Care Training Hub’s aim to support learner placement experience. It is and forms a key element of the place-based learning national and locality pilots. Through participating in the CEF model Kent and Medway PCNs will be preparing for the breadth of workplace learners involved in General Practice teams and shaping what ‘excellent’ quality assured, place-based placements need to look like in primary care.
Clinical pharmacists work as part of the general practice team to improve value and outcomes from medicines and consult with and treat patients directly. This includes providing extra help to manage long-term conditions, advice for those on multiple medicines and better access to health checks. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and ensuring patient safety.
Having clinical pharmacists in GP practices means that GPs can focus their skills where they are most needed, for example on diagnosing and treating patients with more complex conditions. This helps GPs to manage the demands on their time.
Community Mental Health
Community mental health services play a crucial role in delivering mental health care for adults with severe mental health needs as close to home as possible. A network of services provided by the NHS, social services and voluntary and charity sector agencies designed to keep people independent, and to support people s who might previously have been in hospital.
Clinical Management Plan
A CMP is a plan of care for a named patient and the specific condition(s) to be managed by the supplementary prescriber, with the patient's agreement.
Community of Practice
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or an interest in a topic and who come together to fulfill both individual and group goals. Communities of practice often focus on sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice. Interaction on an ongoing basis is an important part of this.
Continuing Professional Development
Continuing Professional Development is the term used to describe the learning activities professionals engage in to develop and enhance their abilities.
Care Quality Commission
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulates all health and social care services in England. The commission ensures the quality and safety of care in hospitals, dentists, ambulances, primary care premises, care homes, and the care given in people's own homes.
Clinical Supervisor
Clinical supervisors oversee the clinical activity of trainee doctors, ensuring that they only perform tasks they are competent to do.
Enhanced Clinical Practitioner
Enhanced Practice is a level of practice within the healthcare workforce. It is delivered by experienced registered professionals (first level statuary registration or a managed voluntary registration) who undertake complex work and manage day to day risk, including risks on behalf of, or with patients. Enhanced practice occurs in multiple settings including secondary, community and primary care.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Equality
Equality means making sure that everyone is treated fairly and with dignity and respect. It means challenging discrimination and removing barriers, so that everyone has opportunities to achieve their desired outcomes.
Diversity
Diversity is about recognising the benefits of different values, abilities, and perspectives, and celebrating people’s differences. This means promoting an environment that welcomes and values diverse backgrounds, thinking, skills and experience.
Inclusion
Inclusion is providing a space where everyone has equal access to opportunities and resources, and where everyone feels valued and accepted. Everyone should be able to contribute and have a voice. This may mean making reasonable adjustments to facilitate participation
First Contact Practitioner (Physiotherapist)
The role of the FCP in primary care is to assess patients with soft tissue, muscle and joint pain and to decide on the most appropriate management pathway.
Foundation Degree Nursing Associate
Individuals complete the two-year Nursing Associate Foundation Degree which is split between placements and on-campus learning. Successful completion of the course entitles you to register with the Nursing & Midwifery (NMC) council as a Registered Nurse Associate.
Fellowships are a two-year programme of support, available to all newly qualified GPs and nurses working substantively in general practice, with an explicit focus on working within and across a Primary Care Network (PCN). Integrated care systems (ICSs) and Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships (STPs) should encourage all eligible clinicians to sign up, and aim for as close to 100% coverage as possible https://www.england.nhs.uk/gp/the-best-place-to-work/gp-fellowship-programme/
Educational Supervisor
Each GP trainee will have a named Educational Supervisor (ES) for the entire duration of their training programme. This is usually their trainer in the final placement of their rotation and is allocated at the beginning of their first rotation. The role of the ES is to continuously monitor the performance of the trainee over their training rotation and provide feedback; pastoral and clinical advice.
General Practice Assistant
General Practice Assistants provide a support role, carrying out administrative tasks, combined in some areas with basic clinical duties.
They can help to free up GPs time and contribute to the smooth running of appointments, improving patients experience in the surgery.
General Practice Nurse
General practice nurses work in GP surgeries as part of the primary healthcare team, which might include doctors, pharmacists and dietitians. In larger practices, you might be one of several practice nurses sharing duties and responsibilities. In others, you might be working on your own, taking on many roles.
GP with Extended Roles
GPs who undertake, in addition to their core general practice, a role that is beyond the scope of GP training and the MRCGP and requires further training, can apply for accreditation as a GP with Extended Role (GPwER).
Health and Wellbeing Coach
Health and Wellbeing Coaches (HWBCs) will support people to develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to become active participants in their care and enable them to reach their self-identified health and wellbeing goals.
Health Care Assistant
A healthcare assistant (HCA) has a varied role depending on their place of work. In Primary Care the HCA works with specific guidelines and protocols and within the scope of their practice, assisting the practice clinical team in the provision and delivery of prescribed programmes of patient care, including preventative care, health promotion and patient education. The HCA assists in the assessment and monitoring of patients' health and well-being undertaking specific clinical activities for named patients.
Health and Care Partnerships
HCPs bring together health and care providers – including hospitals, community care, mental health care, GPs and social care – to plan and deliver services to the people of west Kent and to support them to live healthy lives.
Health and Care Professions Council
The HCPC is the regulatory body that maintains a register of a number of healthcare professions.
Higher Education Institute
In England, Higher Education institutions are independent, self-governing bodies active in teaching, research and scholarship and established by Royal Charter or legislation. Most are part-funded by government. Higher Education (HE) is provided by different types of institution. The KMPCTH works in partnership with different HEIs, among which the University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church University, the University of Greenwich and Kent & Medway Medical School.
IC24 is a social enterprise that provides responsive, safe, high-quality urgent healthcare to over six million people. The organisation may cover for general practices when the workforce is attending a PLT session.
Integrated Care Board
NHS Kent & Medway ICB is the organisation that plans and buys healthcare services to meet the needs of the 1.8million people living in Kent and Medway with an annual budget of around £3.5 billion in 2022/23 to provide the best possible care for the whole county.
Integrated Care Partnership
4 in Kent: Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley; East Kent; Medway and Swale and West Kent.
Integrated Care System
Integrated care systems (ICSs) are partnerships that bring together NHS organisations, local authorities and others to take collective responsibility for planning services, improving health and reducing inequalities across geographical areas. The focus is on providing care in a way that benefits patients - not what is easiest for organisations.
The interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
Independent Prescribing
Currently nurses, pharmacists, optometrists, physiotherapists, chiropodists or podiatrists, radiographers, paramedics, dieticians and community practitioners may undertake further professional training to qualify as non-medical prescribers. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) single competency framework sets out what good prescribing looks like and describes the demonstrable knowledge, skills, characteristics, qualities and behaviours for a safe and effective prescribing role. It is a generic framework that can be used by any prescriber at any point in their career, regardless of their professional background. However, it must be contextualised to reflect different areas of practice, levels of expertise and settings.
Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust
NHS services in the community across Kent, parts of East Sussex and London.
Kent & Medway Medical School
Medical school based in Canterbury and created as a collaboration between the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University.
Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust
Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) provides secondary mental health services to 1.7 million people across Kent and Medway, both in the community and within inpatient settings.
Kent Surrey Sussex
Local Medical Committee
Kent Local Medical Committee acts as the official democratic representative voice of Kent General Practitioners. The LMC is a committee of general practitioners elected on a constituency basis by local GPs.
Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC)
Organisation that represents all community pharmacy contractors
Mental Health Practitioner
MHPs dedicate their time to people who have mental health conditions or needs in Primary Care.
(covering populations of around 30,000 to 50,000 people*): where groups of GP practices work with NHS community services, social care and other providers to deliver more co-ordinated and proactive care, including through the formation of primary care networks (PCNs) and multi-agency neighbourhood teams.
Source: King’s Fund
Neurodiversity describes the different ways people’s brain can process information, i.e. a different way to perceive the world. This may include autism, ADHD, etc and is not correlated to intelligence.
Non-Medical Prescribing
Non-medical prescribing is the term used to describe prescribing medications by nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals who are not doctors.
New to Practice Programme
The NTPP is a programme designed for GPs, Practice Nurses, Nursing Associates, Pharmacists and Mental Health Practitioners that are either newly qualified or new to general practice.
Occupational Therapist
Occupational therapists help all kinds of people overcome all kinds of challenges, so they can live as fully and independently as possible. This might involve learning new ways to do things or making changes to their environment to make things easier.
Physician Associate
Physician Associates are healthcare professionals with a general medical education who work alongside and under the supervision of a GP.
Place-based learning
Primary Care Network
Primary care networks (PCNs) form a key building block of the NHS long-term plan. Bringing general practices together to work at scale has been a policy priority for some years for a range of reasons, including improving the ability of practices to recruit and retain staff; to manage financial and estates pressures; to provide a wider range of services to patients and to more easily integrate with the wider health and care system.
(covering populations of around 250,000 to 500,000 people*): where partnerships of health and care organisations in a town or district – including local government, NHS providers, VCSE organisations, social care providers and others – come together to join up the planning and delivery of services, redesign care pathways, engage with local communities and address health inequalities and the social and economic determinants of health. In many (but not all) cases, place footprints are based on local authority boundaries.
Source: King’s Fund
Protected Learning Time
PLT is a dedicated time for practice staff to learn and develop; there are 9 PLT sessions per year. See the 2023 PLT Calendar.
There are 5 areas of PLT deliveries in Kent: Thanet/South Coast, Medway/Swale, Ashford/Canterbury, Dartford/Gravesend/Swanley and West Kent.
Practice Manager
PMs manage the business aspect and the smooth running of the surgery, making sure that patients are at the centre of the surgery's operations.
Professional Nurse Advocate
PNAs lead and support nurses in practice. They advocate and encourage nursing teams to lead on quality improvement, which in turn improves patient care. Find out more about the PNA role.
Practice Supervisor
A Practice supervisors’ role is to support and supervise nursing and midwifery students in the practice learning environment. All students must be supervised while learning in practice environments.
Practitioners with Extended Roles
See GPwER.
PwER are practitioners who undertake, in addition to their core general practice, a role beyond the scope of their responsibilities and requires further training and have been accredited as Practitioners with Extended Role (PwER).
Royal College of General Practitioners
The Royal College of General Practitioners is the professional body for general practitioners in the United Kingdom. The RCGP represents and supports GPs on key issues including licensing, education, training, research and clinical standards. It is the largest of the medical royal colleges, with over 50,000 members.
Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship
A Nursing Degree Apprenticeship enables you to train to become a Registered Nurse through an Apprenticeship route.
Return to Nursing
If you have taken a break from Nursing, which has led to you no longer being on the NMC register, you can take part in the Return to Nursing programme to get back into nursing.
South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
The organisation may cover for general practices when the workforce is attending a PLT session.
Simulation Training offers practical training to the multi-professional workforce by recreating situations that can happen in Primary Care settings.
Student Nursing Associate
The Student Nursing Associate Apprenticeship (SNA) is a highly trained, generic, nursing support role in England designed to bridge the gap between Healthcare Support Workers (HCSWs) and Registered Nurses (RNs) to deliver hands-on, person-centered care as part of the nursing team.
Social Prescribing Link Worker
Social Prescribing Link Workers work with people to help them connect to community groups and organisations to help them find practical and emotional support, according to their needs and special interests.
(covering populations of around 500,000 to 3 million people*): where health and care partners come together at scale to set overall system strategy, manage resources and performance, plan specialist services, and drive strategic improvements in areas such as workforce planning, digital infrastructure and estates.
Source: King’s Fund
