North Solihull Primary Care Network (NSPCN) has worked closely with Gateway Family Services since December 2019. Initially, this partnership provided us with four Social Prescribers to support our population of approximately 80,000 patients. More recently, we’ve expanded this collaboration to include two Health and Wellbeing Coaches (HWBCs).

Gateway has been instrumental in driving these services forward. They consistently liaise with our Senior Management Team, keeping us updated on progress, outcomes, and developments. They also meet directly with our GP practices to ensure everyone understands the services and how to best use them.

We’ve also benefited from Gateway’s provision of Lifestyle Services to Solihull MBC, which has enabled direct interaction between the services we commission and those offered by our local council. This creates a ‘wrap-around’ approach that supports our patients comprehensively.

Working with a single provider has been a significant advantage for us. It allows us to make timely service adjustments, informs our staff about referral pathways and options, and reduces the workload for our primary care managers, who only need to have the conversation once. This alignment leads to complementary services, resulting in less confusion for both our patients and staff.