Building bridges between primary care and VCFSE Sector
On Thursday, 19 June 2025, the first in a series of roundtables brought together Greater Manchester Primary Care and voluntary community faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) leaders.
From the VCFSE sector, senior figures from local infrastructure bodies such as 10GM, the Alternative Provider Collaborative, the Mental Health Leaders Group, GM=EqAl, and cornerstone Greater Manchester (GM) organisations including the LGBT Foundation, Caribbean & African Health Network, 42nd Street and Answer Cancer took part. On the primary care side, attendees included senior leaders from the Primary Care Provider Board (PCB) and Primary Care Collaborative.
Those attending the session at the Friends Meeting House Manchester explored the governance, scale and operational models of each other, and reflected on the strengths, challenges and achievements of each other.
Shared purpose and shared potential
A number of key themes emerged from the discussion:
A common purpose and vision for improving health and care for all communities across Greater Manchester
Opportunities to better align delivery models and infrastructure support
How we might, in partnership, shape future models of delivery in Greater Manchester.
Linking local to national
Discussion also picked up on Sir Jim Mackey’s recent call for stronger integration across health systems: “We need all parts of the system to be as strong as every other part” - Sir Jim Mackey, Health on the Line (10th June 2025). Participants acknowledged that power and influence within the NHS is often unevenly distributed between organisations.
Roundtable attendees also discussed how working together could help deliver national priorities set out by Health Secretary Wes Streeting at NHS ConfedExpo in Manchester: radically improving population health approaches, systematically tackling inequality and creating a better neighbourhood health system.
What happens next
There was a strong sense that primary care boards, working with primary care providers across the city region, and VCFSE leadership can bring collective expertise and strength to shared Greater Manchester priorities, from the Live Well programme and neighbourhood health to designing prevention-focused services and delivering care closer to communities.
The roundtable was co-chaired by Tracey Vell, Chief Officer of the GM PCB, and Warren Escadale, Chair of the GM VCFSE Leaders Group, and supported by Rob Bellingham Consulting. Further sessions are planned, aiming to turn shared ambition into practical collaboration that improves outcomes for communities across the region.