The Excellence in Primary Care and Community Care Award

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Primary care services are the ‘front door’ of the NHS and are often our first port of call when experiencing symptoms. Primary care practitioners are GPs, community pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, community midwives and health visitors, family planning or sexual health clinic staff. Equally, community care services are pivotal in supporting people to stay well and independent at home, preventing unnecessary admissions to hospitals, delivery better healthcare, ensuring that people can return home safely after being in hospital.

As the needs of patients and the wider NHS evolves, so does the role of these professionals, and this award seeks to recognise practitioners and their teams in primary or community care that are working with patients to help them stay healthy and avoid long stays in hospital or being admitted in the first place.

This could be through:

• bringing in different kinds of professionals and/or working with voluntary groups to broaden the range of services in their local practice or area;
• working closely with colleagues in hospitals and the third sector to plan patient care better;
• joining together with other practises to jointly deliver more convenient appointments for patients;
• delivering enhanced health in care homes to ensure residents have the same level of support as if they were living in their own home.