Dr Dave Tomson, Clinical Director of North Shields PCN explains more:

GP Practices in a Primary Care Network (PCN) work at three levels of the system:

Level ONE – Strengthening General Practice

Since their formation in 2019, Primary Care Networks have focused on strengthening General Practice locally, through investment in new staff and providing even better services for patients

Level TWO – Developing Community Health Services

Some services that are offered by individual GP Practices can be more efficient and responsive to patient’s needs, by being offered by a group of GP Practices working together e.g. specialist dressings clinics, continence clinics, medication reviews and learning disability health checks.
Other services, currently offered in hospital, are better offered closer to where people live and the GP Practices that they know well, e.g. spirometry and diagnostic testing for lung disease and vaccination services.

In order to do this we need spaces in our local community to offer these services. In North Shields a new Primary Care Network Hub facility is being developed to help deliver some of North Shields PCNs new services. In partnership with NHS Property Services and Northumbria Health Care Foundation Trust, North Shields PCN are refurbishing a building behind Collingwood Surgery on Hawkeys Lane. This new facility will house the PCN Leadership Team but also some of the new staff we are recruiting and some of the new services we are delivering.

Level THREE – Living Well Locally

The four Primary Care Networks in North Tyneside, North Tyneside Council, and the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS), North Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group (NTCCG) and TyneHealth GP Federation are working together to support local residents to ‘Live Well Locally.’
Our vision is to work alongside residents to help you keep yourself well and safe, and enable you to do as much for yourself as possible, for as long as possible.


Caring for each other is everyone’s business – our own, as individuals looking after ourselves; our communities as we look out for our neighbours, family and friends; the wider public, private and voluntary sectors, as we work in partnership together.


What does this mean?

  • Enabling people to take control of and make well-informed choices about their health, lifestyle, care and support; using the full range of assets and resources available to us all.
  • Supporting people to connect to their local communities and engage in activities that interest them and promoting people’s wellbeing by increasing their ability to exercise choice and control, with the aim of preventing or delaying poor health, frailty and people’s need for care and support
  • Improving people’s understanding of and access to community, health and social care services and their experiences of those services locally.

How will we do it?

  • By working together on the things that matter and make a difference to you and your family. Coupled with this, any approach will always aim to improve the health and wellbeing of residents and ensure they are independent where possible and able to maintain a good quality of life.
  • Utilising the networks that exist locally and ensure we all have a common approach to supporting residents, using common tools and techniques.
  • Increasing the social prescribing and care navigation offer to residents who need support to access their community.
  • Developing resources (online tools and physical ones) to support not only residents, but those professionals working with them, to enable people to access those activities agencies and resources that will help them live as well as life as possible.
  • By building on the natural strengths and resources of our communities. We will continue to drive forward community-based initiatives, such as community hubs, that are emerging across the borough.
  • We will work to understand each other as agencies and providers, and to always be able to say “I know a person that can…..”

Our Team

Clinical Director
Dr Dave Tomson

Management team

Jacqueline Niven, Operational Manager
Rachel Goicoechea, Business Support Manager

GP Clinical Leads

Dr Mark Tones, Pharmacy Lead
Dr Katie Hearn, Care Home Lead
Dr Katie Elliot, Cancer Lead