Expanded cohort of primary care organisations in Cheshire & Merseyside come together for first community of practice

Earlier this month, 12 primary care organisations came together for the first time as a ‘community of practice’ as part of HEG’s further delivery of the NHS Prevention Pledge to the primary care sector in Cheshire & Merseyside. Primary care colleagues presented examples of current practice in taking a preventative approach to provision of healthcare services, including work to address health inequalities, enhance the social value of their organisations to the local economy, and prioritise staff health and wellbeing.

The expanded cohort of primary care organisations has welcomed representatives from eight new PCNs covering Kirkby, Southport & Formby, North Wirral, Halton, Winsford and three PCNs based in Warrington. The programme is continuing to be funded by NHS Cheshire & Merseyside’s population health programme as part of the All Together Fairer work to address health inequalities within the sub-region.

PCNs who are involved in adoption of the Prevention Pledge will need to demonstrate how they are delivering actions against the six core commitments by developing an action tracker that will be monitored over an initial six-month period, concluding in April 2026. In addition to galvanising work on prevention and health inequalities, adoption of the NHS Prevention Pledge will assist PCNs in submitting evidence to the CQC and deliver against population health requirements of the DES contract specification. Primary care organisations are being supported through a suite of guidance materials, quarterly community of practice meetings, and 1-2-1 direct support from staff at HEG.

Over 2024-25, HEG worked with an initial group of five PCNs and GP practices in Cheshire and Merseyside to successfully pilot test a version of the Prevention Pledge for use in primary care settings, and this is now being rolled out further across an expanded cohort of PCNs over 2025-26. A process evaluation of the pilot, based on interviews with the pilot sites, found high engagement with the Prevention Pledge, which was viewed as feasible and beneficial, despite challenges such as staffing and capacity constraints. The pilot added value to existing prevention work, fostered collaboration through Community of Practice meetings, and all sites expressed a desire to continue using the framework beyond the pilot phase. A finding report from the pilot evaluation was published in July 2025.

The primary care model for the NHS Prevention Pledge is underpinned by six ‘core commitments’ that were co-developed with clinical directors in C&M and refined further through the pilot process which ran across 2024-25. The core commitments cover the following broad topics:

• Embedding prevention & health in PCN governance structures
• Working with social prescribers to deliver local priorities through clinical and non-clinical support
• Embracing ‘anchor institution’ practices that positively impact on the wider determinants of health
• Embed a ‘making every contact counts’ (MECC) approach through provision of training and/or resources across the workforce
• Developing health promoting primary care environments e.g. promoting physically active GP practices

For further information about the Prevention Pledge in Primary and Secondary care settings, please email: matthew.philpott@heg.org.uk