Data Description
Primary Care Networks (PCN) in England.
PCNs were introduced into the National Health Service in England as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, and form the building blocks of Integrated Care Systems. A PCN consists of a group of general practices working together with a range of local providers (pharmacy, mental health, social care, community and voluntary sector), serving a population of at least 30,000 and not tending to exceed 50,000. They build on the core of current primary care services and enable greater provision of proactive, personalised, coordinated and more integrated health and social care. From 1 July 2019, the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) provides the opportunity and funding for general practices to form and develop networks. It also sets out the national requirements in terms of service delivery and access to new workforce funding.
This data contains names and address information and identifying codes for Primary Care Networks (PCN) in England. The Sub ICB Location whose boundary the PCN sits within (predominantly) is provided via an 'is commissioned by' relationship - see table below.
GP Practice (Prescribing Cost Centre) codes are related to PCNs in ODS data where they are core member practices (via an 'RE8 - Is Partner To' relationship - see below).
ODS maintain and publish the practice / federation / Trust / ISHP who acts as the 'nominated payee' for the PCN (where applicable, since 2023 it has been possible for a PCN to set up their own bank account to receive PCN payments via PCSE/SBS), so a nominated payee is no longer mandatory in ODS).
ODS also maintain and publish the 'COVID nominated payee' within a PCN for COVID vaccination purposes.
How Data is Maintained
The initial allocation of PCN codes and core partner data was completed by ODS using information provided by Clinical Commissioning Groups (as they were in 2019) or NHS England Regions. From the point of publication, all PCN data (including the practice partner and nominated payee relationships) will be maintained by the relevant Sub ICB Location informing ODS of changes to PCNs in their area by submitting an ODS PCN Change Instruction Notice to the Exeter Helpdesk.
COVID nominated payee - this information was provided to ODS by the national COVID vaccination programme, and is now maintained via NHS England regional leads submitting change requests from Foundry to ODS via ServiceNow/Exeter Helpdesk.
Data Quality Assessment
For further information re the: ODS Data Quality Assessment Framework
| Data Quality Dimension | |||||||||||
| Last updated: |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ODS mastered or 3rd party data | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| OVERALL | Frequency of Update | Data Collection Method | Fit for Purpose | Coverage / Completeness | Reliability / Accuracy | Data Agreement | 3rd Party Escalation Routes | System Application / Downstream System Feedback | Future Refinement / Improvement Plan | ||
| Primary Care Network | GREEN | Green | Green | Green | Green | Green | ODS | n/a | n/a | Green | Amber |
| Ad Hoc | Customer request via Service Desk (requests will only be processed if submitted by primary care commissioning, finance or procurement teams within the lead ICB) | Codes created specifically to identify each PCN and support payment calculations, payment processing and activity monitoring. | Each PCN must have a unique identifier therefore coverage complete. | Codes and reference data used for financial transactions therefore data is regularly updated and accuracy is essential. | n/a | n/a | Occasional issues with partner relationship data (i.e. overlapping relationships) | ODS plan to increase internal reference data controls that will tighten up data quality | |||
Key Information - Roles, Code Formats and Data Source
| Key Information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geographic coverage |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Primary Role ID | RO272 | Primary Role Name | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Non Primary Role ID | N/A | Non Primary Role Name | N/A | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Raw Data Source | Relevant Sub ICB Location NHSE Regions (COVID nominated payee only) | Update Frequency | Ad-hoc | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Code Format |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Permitted Relationships
Permitted Relationships - 'Primary Care Networks' can be linked to (upward): | ||||
Source Primary Role ID | Relationship Type Id | Relationship Type Name | Target Primary Role ID | Target Primary Role Name |
RO272 | RE4 | IS COMMISSIONED BY | RO98 | CLINICAL COMMISSIONING GROUP |
| Permitted Relationships - organisation types that are linked to a 'Primary Care Network' (downward/dependent): | |||||
| Source Primary Role ID | Source Primary Role Name | Rel Type Id | Relationship Type Name | Target Primary Role ID | Target Primary Role Name |
| RO177 | PRESCRIBING COST CENTRE | RE10 | IS COVID NOMINATED PAYEE FOR | RO272 | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK |
| RO157 | NON-NHS ORGANISATION | RE9 | IS NOMINATED PAYEE FOR | RO272 | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK |
| RO172 | INDEPENDENT SECTOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER | RE9 | IS NOMINATED PAYEE FOR | RO272 | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK |
| RO176 | INDEPENDENT SECTOR H/C PROVIDER SITE | RE9 | IS NOMINATED PAYEE FOR | RO272 | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK |
| RO177 | PRESCRIBING COST CENTRE | RE9 | IS NOMINATED PAYEE FOR | RO272 | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK |
| RO197 | NHS TRUST | RE9 | IS NOMINATED PAYEE FOR | RO272 | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK |
| RO177 | PRESCRIBING COST CENTRE | RE8 | IS PARTNER TO | RO272 | PRIMARY CARE NETWORK |
Legacy Report Field Mapping
epcn.xls
PCN Details tab
Primary Role ID = RO272
Col | Data Item | Report Alias (legacy xls) | Notes |
1 | [OrganisationCode] | PCN Code | |
2 | [OrgName] | PCN Name | |
3 | [TargetOrgCode] | Current Sub ICB Location Code | Target organisation code of the RE6 'is operated by' relationship – Where LegalEndDate is null, or where the relationship LegalEndDate is equal to the organisation LegalEndDate |
4 | [OrgName] | Sub ICB Location Name | The organisation name to support RE6 'is operated by' target org code in column 3 |
5 | [Address1] | Address Line 1 | |
6 | [Address2] | Address Line 2 | |
7 | [Address3] | Address Line 3 | |
8 | [Town] | Address Line 4 | |
9 | [County] | Address Line 5 | Change from legacy csv: As this is a legacy field, not populated for new addresses since 2018, this field within the ODS Data Search & Export tool (including pre defined reports) will not be populated. Note that the value (where populated) is available via the FHIR Organization Resource in the address.district property. |
10 | [Postcode] | Postcode |
EPCN_CorePartnerDetails
Primary Role ID = RO177
Only includes Practices (RO177) that are present as a SourceOrg where the relationship type is RE8 (IS PARTNER TO)
Col | Data Item | Report Alias (legacy xls) | Notes |
1 | [OrganisationCode] | Partner Organisation Code | |
2 | [OrgName] | Partner Name | |
3 | [TargetOrgCode] | Practice Parent Sub ICB Location Code | Target organisation code of the RE4 'is commissioned by' relationship – Where LegalEndDate is null, or where the relationship LegalEndDate is equal to the organisation LegalEndDate |
4 | [OrgName] | Practice Parent Sub ICB Location Name | The organisation name to support RE4 target org code in column 3 |
5 | [TargetOrgCode] | PCN Code | RE8 'is partner to' relationship – there may be multiple – if there are more than one for a given practice, the practice will have a record within the report to accommodate each relationship |
6 | [OrgName] | PCN Name | The organisation name to support RE8 target org code in column 5 |
7 | [TargetOrgCode] | PCN Parent Sub ICB Location Code | RE4 relationship TargetOrgCode where the SourceOrgCode is detailed in column 5 – Where LegalEndDate is null, or where the relationship LegalEndDate is equal to the organisation LegalEndDate |
8 | [OrgName] | PCN Parent Sub ICB Location Name | The organisation name to support RE4 target org code in column 5 |
9 | [LegalStartDate] | Practice to PCN Relationship Start Date | RE4 relationship legal start date |
10 | [LegalEndDate] | Practice to PCN Relationship End Date | RE4 relationship legal end date |
11 | ‘TRUE’ OR ‘FALSE’ | Practice Sub ICB and PCN Sub ICB Match? | This column queries whether the code in column 2 = the code in column 7 - ‘TRUE’ OR ‘FALSE’. i.e. is the commissioner of the PCN the same as the commissioner of each core member GP Practice. This is used as an indicator of PCNs that cover more than one Sub ICB Location. |