Meet the Team

GP practices are working together with community, mental health, social care, pharmacy, hospital and voluntary services in their local areas in groups of practices known as Primary Care Networks (PCNs).

What is a Primary Care Network (PCN)?

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Lane End Medical Group is a member of Barnet PCN 4 with three other local practices. The following staff are not employed by the practice but work for the PCN and can be accessed through the practice:

Pharmacy Team

Our PCN has clinical pharmacists who are highly qualified experts in medicines providing additional support to practices. They undertake structured medication reviews for patients with ongoing health problems, improve patient safety and outcomes, and can also review patients with certain long-term conditions such as Asthma, COPD and Hypertension (high blood pressure). Our PCN clinical pharmacists are Mita Shah, Mina Bahash and Omar Aftab.

In addition to the pharmacists, the PCN also has a Pharmacy Technician. These are registered healthcare professionals who, working under the supervision of a pharmacist, support the team with a range of tasks that vary in complexity from responding to medication related queries to ensuring medication safety and regular monitoring. Our PCN pharmacy technician is Shehzad Hussain.

First Contact Physiotherapists (FCP)

First Contact Physiotherapists (FCPs) based in general practice can deal with the vast majority of musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions without a GP review. They provide a first point of contact service which means that patients presenting with a musculoskeletal problem (e.g. back, knee, hip or neck pain) for a GP appointment are offered an appointment with a physiotherapist instead. They have the skills to assess, diagnose, offer self-management advice, and if necessary refer for investigations or further treatment. Our FCPs are Georgios Grigoriou and Soham Deb.

Social Prescribers

Social prescribing is a way for local agencies to refer people to a link worker. Link workers give people time, focusing on ‘what matters to me’ and taking a holistic approach to people’s health and wellbeing. They connect people to community groups and statutory services for practical and emotional support.

Social prescribing works for a wide range of people, including people:

• with one or more long-term conditions
• who need support with their mental health
• who are lonely or isolated
• who have complex social needs which affect their wellbeing

Our Social Prescriber Link Workers are Emma Hatfield, Natasha Mulcahy, Arianna Petralia, and Evelina Rimasauskaite.

Mental Health Practitioner

A significant amount of time within primary care is spent on people who have mental health needs. The time required to address these needs can be large, and it is often more appropriate for the patient to see a skilled professional with training in mental health issues than other members of the team. The Mental Health Practitioner role is designed to work closely with clinicians to assess, diagnose and treat patients with significant mental illness. Our Mental Health Practitioner is Olan Maligaya.

Health and Wellbeing Coach

The health coaching service offers a non-clinical series of up to six 1:1 sessions supporting people to actively engage with their own health and wellbeing. Health coaching is not advice giving but instead focuses on what is important to the person, guiding and supporting them to reflect on and change their health-related behaviours to achieve their self- identified goals. Our Health and Wellbeing Coaches are Rebecca Nix, Louise Bains, and Ashwini Shah.

Care Coordinator

Care Coordinators play an important role within a PCN to proactively identify and work with people, including the frail/elderly and those with long-term conditions, to provide coordination and navigation of care and support across our health care services.

Care Coordinators can potentially provide extra time, capacity, and support to patients in preparing for or in following-up clinical conversations they have with primary care professionals.

They will work closely with the GPs and other allied health professionals within the PCN to identify and manage a caseload of  patients, making sure that the appropriate support is made available to them and their careers, and ensuring that their changing needs are addressed. This is achieved by bringing together all the information about a person’s identified care and support needs and exploring options to meet these needs with a single patient centred approach personalised care plan. Our Care Coordinators are Raisa Niamat and Shelley Goodacre.

Other professionals

You also have access to a range of other health professionals who are employed outside of the practice and PCN, but available locally within Barnet:

• District Nurses – see housebound patients for a range of nursing services (e.g. dressings, blood tests, administer medication)
• Occupational Therapists – help you with practical tasks in all aspects of daily life within your home, school or workplace
• Health Visitors – help with the care of children aged 0-5y