About Heartbeat Primary Care CIC
Heartbeat Primary Care is a community interest company owned by the GP practices of Hambleton and Richmondshire. We exist to help GP practices work collaboratively for the benefit of patients and staff.
Formed in 2014, Heartbeat and organisations like ours help General Practice respond to the changing needs of the health system. The changes in our health system require us to work more at scale across our neighbourhoods.
We aim to become indispensable to General Practice by helping to shoulder the burden of provision of care and release some of the pressure that is currently being put on practice teams.
We support our local primary care networks (groups of GP practices serving each neighbourhood) to deliver some of their services in a way that is integrated so that any inequalities can be ironed out and every patient can benefit from the very best proactive treatment and care.
Building on the strong track record of delivering safe, quality services to patients with a high level of patient satisfaction, Heartbeat has created partnerships to provide patients with healthcare solutions that meet the needs of our unique rural demographics.
Our focus directly supports Heartbeat’s mission to; improve health and meet health and care needs by supporting our North Yorkshire communities with innovative and quality services. We are placing values at the centre of the organisation and being the glue that brings a community of North Yorkshire healthcare organisations together.
Collaboration and innovation are key as we work with our network to bring new ideas to improve healthcare services and help articulate a shared view across multiple practices.
We are governed by a Board of Directors, made up of GPs, and expert non-executive directors who all bring a wealth of experience. The Board also considers it essential that the views of service users are built into any service changes, and there are a range of ways in which patients can make their views heard such as the Patient Participation Group in our Harewood Medical Practice or via our comments feedback form or feedback survey links.
What We Do
Heartbeat delivers core General Practice services from our Harewood Medical Practice to around 8,400 patients within the Catterick Garrison.
Our Better Access Service delivers additional appointments, at times that are convenient to patients outside of normal working hours in 8 convenient locations across the Hambleton and Richmondshire localities. GPs, nurses and HCAs work to provide both same-day and routine appointments, nurse clinics such as chronic disease management and smears and health care assistant health checks and blood tests.
Working with our local Primary Care Networks (PCN’s) we host some of the additional roles the PCN’s need to deliver their services, these include pharmacists who support medicines issues in practices and care homes and social prescribing roles who support patients across our area with non medical needs to improve their wellbeing and reduce health inequalities.
We also deliver a number of bespoke services including delivering a continuous professional development programme to clinical and non clinical general practice staff, a respiratory diagnostics service, women’s health appointments and a diabetes structured education service in some key areas.
We hope to expand the range of services we are able to offer to patients by working closely with partner organisations within our health economy to bring care closer to our communities.