PwSI - archive links
Warning: some of these documents may now be out of date. You can read an October 2006 update from the PwSI project lead here.
Implementing a Scheme for Practice Managers with Special Interests
The first Practitioners with Special Interests guidance to address a non-clinical area of health practice, developed following the implementation of the new GMS contract and in light of recent changes and developments around primary care, especially in areas such as Practice Based Commissioning, where groups of practices within a health economy are encouraged to work together to develop new and innovative ways of developing and contracting clinical services.
Explains the background to the PwSI team’s work, summarises the resources available to those now responsible for developing PwSI schemes, and suggests some key issues that are likely to require SHA and PCT attention in the near future.
Postgraduate Courses for Practitioners with a Special Interest
Bradford City teaching Primary Care Trust have announced the first postgraduate courses for Practitioners with a Special Interest (PwSI) to offer national accreditation, run from within the NHS. The part-time, work-based courses are currently being run in cardiology, gynaecology, urology, diabetes, gastroenterology and respiratory medicine. They have been set up as a response to the developing NHS agenda for a changing and developing workforce, and are accessible to practitioners nationwide.
Each programme runs over a minimum period of 18 months part-time of which only seven days will be required to be spent in Bradford. Participants will need to arrange a placement and identify a mentor (usually a specialist consultant) and should have the support of their Primary Care Organisation. Each course has two start dates during the year. A Postgraduate Diploma (four modules) costs £4,500, a Postgraduate Certificate (two modules) costs £2,250. For more information or an application pack, please contact psi@bradford.nhs.uk
Practitioners with a Special Interest (PwSI) Document Map
brings together a collection of documents produced by PCTs in the development of PwSI services. It supports the process for establishing PwSI services which is set out in NatPaCT’s Step by Step Guide, but illustrates this process through real documents. We hope that it will also, therefore, be a resource for PCTs looking for examples of job descriptions, contracts, referral templates, etc when developing their own PwSI services.
The documents are not, of course, prescriptive, but we feel that they provide good examples of how to develop PwSI services. We are grateful to the PCTs who have given us permission to showcase their work in this way.