Primary Care Access Programme (PCAP) - Learning from teams
This page holds a number of PCAP resources to demonstrate the work of the programme, share learning and highlight the impact of our work.
Brief insights
Brief insights are a short summary from some of the teams who have participated in the PCAP and outlines their challenges, change ideas and impact they made. Below are examples of what some teams have achieved during a 7-week sprint. To read more, click on the links below.
| Team | Topic | Brief insights |
| Graeme Medical Centre | Administrative | Reducing phone call volume with email fit note requests |
| Glen Mor Medical Practice | Administrative | Increasing referrals to physiotherapy |
| Midlock Medical Centre | Appointment system | Reducing the triage list with same-day appointments for children |
| Perth City Medical Centre | Appointment system | Increasing access to routine appointments |
| Moray Coast Medical Practice | Appointment system | Creating a minor illness clinic to reduce the daily triage list |
| Carrick Medical Practice | Prescribing | Reducing acute prescription demand with permissible repeats |
| Riverside Medical Practice | Medication reviews | Reducing prescription requests with an online request form |
| Braids Medical Practice | Appointments system | Increasing access to face-to-face appointments |
National sharing the learning webinar
We hosted a webinar showcasing previous participants of PCAP where they shared their experiences, reflections and discussed the challenges they faced and how we've worked with them to begin to address the challenges.
A copy of the recording can be accessed here. Individual team recordings can be access below:
Appointments
Prescribing
Administrative
Evaluation report
We are excited to share our evaluation report for cohorts 1, 2, and 3 of the Primary Care Access Programme. From October 2022 – April 2023, we supported 78 primary care teams from 11 NHS boards to rapidly improve an aspect of access over a 7-week sprint. The report summarises participant feedback and key learning from our evaluation of the programme. It also highlights the teams’ hard work, the changes they made, and the resulting impact on access.
Podcast
The fourth episode of the Healthcare Improvement Scotland Podcast features previous participants of PCAP discussing challenges they've faced and how we've worked with teams to understand their system and identify changes to improve access. You can listen to the Improving access to primary care podcast using Podbean or the podcast app of your choice.
Cohort infographics
Each infographic gives more information about who we worked with in each cohort and the topics they worked on:
- Cohort 1 Infographic
- Cohort 2 Infographic
- Cohort 3 Infographic
- Cohort 4 Infographic
- Cohort 5 Infographic
For more information about who we worked with during the development of the GP Access Tools and test sprint visit our developing the improvement sprint and test sprint teams pages.
The Primary Care Access Programme (PCAP) will be delivered under the Primary Care Improvement Collaborative in Spring 2024. To find out more about the collaborative and apply to join, please visit the Join the Primary Care Improvement Collaborative webpage.
Get in touch
Email us at his.pcpteam@nhs.scot if you have a question about the Primary Care Access Programme.