The next steps setting out how local primary care networks will work with partners across new integrated care systems will soon be unveiled, the chief executive of the NHS has said.

Amanda Pritchard has appointed GP Dr Claire Fuller, senior responsible officer of the Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care System, to demonstrate how services should develop and how systems can accelerate the introduction of the primary care, out of hospital care and prevention ambitions in the NHS Long Term Plan.

The 42 Integrated Care Systems across England will bring together hospital, community and mental health trusts, GPs and other primary care services with local authorities and other care providers when they are to become statutory organisations in April. Dr Fuller, a practising GP, will scrutinise how primary care networks can support integrated care systems.

Ms Pritchard said: “Partnership working has been at the heart of the remarkable NHS response to the pandemic and has helped us to deliver the most successful vaccination programme in our history – with millions of people protected from the virus at speed. The time to lay the groundwork for statutory Integrated Care Systems is now and it is vital that we ensure primary care is embedded at the heart of their development before they become statutory organisations in April as the proposed legislation sets out.

“I have seen first-hand how integrated care means better patient care – whether it be in Reigate, where the local vaccination clinic is offering blood pressure checks to people being jabbed, or in Bradford, where they are teaming up with local schools to provide children with mental health support.I am delighted that Dr Claire Fuller will be driving this work forward, the examples seen in her local area show how partnership working particularly between GP practices and wider partners can deliver better experiences for patients”.

Dr Fuller will describe the next steps by March 2022. She said: “I am delighted to have been asked to lead this work, and to use our experience locally to help systems across the country.

As a GP, I know only too well the importance of supporting people in the widest sense. Patients who come to my surgery might present with a medical condition but so often this is exacerbated by other factors; financial concerns, housing issues, poor air quality and so on. Our primary care networks are perfectly placed within communities to bring together the right partners to tackle these ‘wider determinants of health’. This is about working collectively to support our most vulnerable citizens and to reduce the inequalities in health we know exist for many communities.”