1. Bollington Medical Centre’s ‘East and West Cheshire Training Hub’
Training Hub Background
Establishing the Primary Care Academy
2018
Primary Care has historically had comparably low investment from HEE to support workforce growth. This is largely due to the disparate nature of general practice and limited data about existing workforce.
In more recent years it has been recognised that the move towards placed based care requires greater focus on developing community and primary care workforce, whilst considering cross system workforce solutions.
In 2015 it was agreed by the GP Trainers in East Cheshire and Vernova, that Bollington Medical Centre should bid to become an Enhanced Training Hub for East Cheshire. This was a new HEE initiative, taking the learning from the training hub model that had been developed in South Yorkshire to increase student nurse placements in general practice. The clinical lead for the project was agreed as Dr Pete Wilson, who successfully secured funding of £90k to support the training hub for 3 years.
In 2017 HEE announced that there was no plan to develop more training hubs, but not all CCGs were supported by one. In April 2017 it was agreed that Bollington Training Hub would cover West Cheshire and be renamed as the ‘East and West Cheshire Training Hub’, but remain hosted by Bollington Medical Centre.
Over the last 3 years the remit of the Training Hub has expanded to ensure we grow primary care workforce by:
Becoming a more attractive career choice
Creating an engaged and empowered workforce
Establishing career pathways in all parts of the system
Key result areas focused on:
Promoting and coordinating non-medical student placements and increasing nurse mentors in general practice
Promoting careers in general practice
Supporting new roles in general practice – i.e. Physician Associates and GP Assistants
The overarching objective for the Training Hub is to support with the growth and development of the primary care workforce in East and West Cheshire
For 2018 HEE asked the 6 training hubs in Cheshire and Merseyside to consider how they could work collaboratively to deliver more workforce projects at a larger scale. The C&M Training Hub collaborative secured £300k to fund the core work until 2019 and additional projects across C&M. Each Training Hub agreed to lead on a number of these projects and it was agreed to rebrand the collaborative using the Bollington model to develop a Primary Care Academy:

2. East & West Cheshire Training Hub Objectives - 2018/19
Project objectives – key stages
Name
Project Role & Timescale
Core work
Increase student nurse placements by 15%
Coordinate new and existing placements with HEI’s
Support Care Communities with workforce strategy
Project work
Develop the C&M Primary Care Academy, including coordinating and promoting the work undertaken by the training hubs
Promotion and coordination of apprenticeships across Cheshire and Merseyside
Develop a workforce management (e-rostering) solution to support with student placements in general practice
Consider training hub support for medical students and GP training in practices
Develop a PCA website
Lead the ‘Grow Your Own’ Cheshire East Place workstream
Trish Atkinson (Manager), Faye Horobin (Coordinator), Falan Barton (Administrator)
Trish Atkinson
Faye Horobin
Falan Barton, supported by Trish Atkinson and Tony Reilly-Cooper
All Training Hub activity and performance is reported to Dr Pete Wilson as Clinical Lead for the Training Hub with additional reporting to HEE and NHSE via the GPFV Workforce Group
-Deliver an increase in student nurse placements and promote careers within General Practice. August 2019-July 2019
-Networking and reporting to HEE and NHSE via the GPFV board. Promoting importance of Training Hubs locally and nationally. March 18- Feb 19
-Establishing and coordinating a fair share application of apprenticeship grants and monitoring quality. (£100k grant monies for onward distribution). March 2018-March 2019
-Working with GE to scope out the need for an e-rostering solution in primary care than can also support the quality of student placements.
-Working with the Deanery to develop PCA support for the training and education of Medical workforce (Initially International GPs). Also working with Mcr Uni to explore new models of Medical Student placements. Funding TBC
-Creating a ‘go to’ place for all primary care education and learning queries; promoting careers; supporting employers with useful workforce toolkits when considering workforce strategy. June 2018 to Feb 2019
-Working with key organisations across Cheshire East to develop workforce projects to support Care Communities. April March 2019