Nine Community Education Provider Networks (CEPNs) now running in the east of England

At the turn of the year the east of England local office launched HEE's national 'Community Education Provider Networks' scheme. This was introduced to provide education and training through innovative multi-professional approaches and in turn improve the quality of care, safety and patient experience.

After launching Wave 1, which saw the introduction of 3 pilot sites in January 2016, we then opened the application process for Wave 2 in March 2016. This saw a further 6 CEPNs created across the east of England with all 9 sites covering a population of over 3.5 million and over 400 practices. 

The 9 CEPN sites include:

• Bedfordshire CEPN (wave 2)
• Central Essex CEPN (wave 1)
• East & North Herts CEPN (wave 2)
• Greater Peterborough Network CEPN (wave 2)
• Great Yarmouth & Waveney CEPN (wave 1)
• Herts Valleys CEPN (wave 2)
• West Cambs CEPN (provisional status) (wave 2)
• West Norfolk CEPN (wave 2)
• West Suffolk CEPN (wave 1)

What's the focus

The east of England office identified five key KPIs which the 9 CEPNs should base their deliverables around. These five areas will allow each CEPN to create individual deliverables whilst still meeting the overall objectives of the east of England. The five key KPIs include,

1. Collaboration
2. Workforce Planning
3. Workforce Training Placements
4. New Ways of Working
5. Sustainability

Creating a unique CEPN

HEE firmly believes that CEPNs will support primary care workforce development by increasing both the range and quantity of clinical learners in primary care. Each CEPN will have a unique operating model to suit the needs of the workforce and the locality. The enhanced opportunities for learners will significantly support service delivery and transformation in each locality; each CEPN is also creating a sustainability plan from the outset to ensure longevity.

CEPNs will be innovative, for example by incorporating local partners in cross-sector educational solutions to produce the integrated high quality patient centred services we will need for the future.

What our CEPNs are saying...

Victoria Fennel, Project Lead - West Suffolk CEPN says:

We want to ensure that we have the right number of health and care professionals with the right skills within Primary Care to meet the evolving needs of local people.

West Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group have established a Community Education Provider Network to bring primary and community care services and education providers together to focus on education and workforce planning.

The CEPN is supporting the existing workforce with mentorship, leadership and health coaching to assist practices in maintaining the highest quality patient care whilst inspiring the workforce of the future to embark on their own rewarding career journey in Primary Care.

We are building on our existing working relationships with our local university to create bespoke hub and spoke placements with input from the practices to ensure that both the students and staff will get the most out of the experience.

As the project progresses we will be looking at ways to introduce social care placements into the hub and spoke model to encourage students to build a diverse portfolio of skills and a greater understanding of the importance of integrated care.  We will also be looking to introduce roles such as Pharmacists and Paramedics to support practices in meeting the care needs of the local population.

Recent developments

Health Education England have formed a national Training Hub Working Group which will meet on a monthly basis to help support the development of training hubs across the 13 local offices in England. This group will help create a vision for training hubs, acting as an expert reference group, sharing good working practice and lessons learned.

On Tuesday 10 May 2016 there will also be the first national Training Hub Workshop event held in London.The day will provide delegates the opportunity to meet and work with a range of attendees including CCG representatives, non- medical/healthcare professional and primary care leads who work with HEE local offices.

The day will include:

• Solutions based workshops
• New models of care panel discussion
• Hot topics download

Speakers and panel members will include Dr Andrew Frankel, Post Graduate Dean, HEE London and South East; Dr Nav Chana, Chairman National Association of Primary Care and Philippa Hunt, Workforce Redesign, NHS England.