Primary Care Trusts

[throckenholt]

Can anyone tell me does your PCT go by where you live or where the GP is ? Example you live in one county and your GP is just over the border in a neighbouring county - where is your PCT ?

bump

Currently it's based on your postcode but there is reorganisation going on which will align patients with where their GP is located to ensure all the CCGs 'match up'.

I think it depends what you mean. If it's which PCT pays for your treatment it's the one based on the practice where you're registered. Because you currently have a limited choice of which practice you can register at, for most people it's the same as the PCT covering the postcode where they live. But they can be different, as in your case.

Btw, if you want to read more about this, you can do so here but trust me, you really, really don't want to

Some of the practices that send us samples have got patients registered in two PCTs - some of them down the middle of a road. Makes patient management interesting.
At some point this year the boundaries are being withdrawn (so I've been told) to align everyone. Irritatingly this that all my systems that account for the above will have to be rewritten

Bela - yep, there are plans to change the back end system that pays the practices per patient as this system is distributed over a number of different servers based on the patient's postcode. So in throckenholt's case she might well be a fringe patient - resident on one server by virtue of postcode but belonging to a practice whose main patient list is on another.

It's less to do with the introduction of CCGs (although that's a factor) and more to do with the introduction of the Register with any GP initiative that means the current arrangements may become unsustainable in the near future and so, as you say, things are being shifted about so your practice of registration determines which server your record is on, not your postcode.

That doesn't, however, change any policy about which PCT is 'yours' (depending on why throckenholt is asking) - you are still the responsibility of your PCT of registration, albeit for some things (such as regional averages) you may, I guess, get counted based on where you live and not where you're registered.

All very simple