Network Contract DES
Everything you need to support activity and monitoring for the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service
The Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service (DES) requires general practices and Primary Care Networks to improve health outcomes for their populations, using a data-driven approach and population health management techniques in line with guidance and the CORE20PLUS5 approach. Our toolkit contains a wealth of resources to help you do this.
Where to start
Use our dashboards and software tools to find out where you need to focus your improvement efforts, then our searches to identify the patients you need to support. Our templates record all your activity correctly so that it is then reflected in the next dashboard iteration or software tool refresh. If you need any help carrying out these improvement cycles, our facilitators are here to help.
Explore the toolkit
CEG tools
- Available for EMIS Web and SystmOne across North East London
We currently offer three tools that help you to achieve the desired Network Contract DES outcomes:
- Atrial Fibrillation Tool - Risk stratification and medicines optimisation for patients with atrial fibrillation
- APL-Renal - Risk stratification and management of patients with chronic kidney disease
- Cancer Diagnosis Audit Tool - Audit past cancer diagnoses to identify avoidable delays and help refine referral pathways to improve early cancer diagnosis
A fourth tool is under development to help identify and manage patients at risk of cardiovascular disease.
Dashboards
- Available in the online Dashboards Hub, NEL-wide page
Network Contract DES
We have built a specific Network Contract DES dashboard to help practices and PCNs see where to focus their efforts. It covers CVD prevention and diagnosis, proactive care for frailty, Structured Medication Reviews and Social Prescribing, displaying data, trends and comparisons at practice, PCN, and Place level.
Cancer Screening
This dashboard allows you to identify where you need to focus to improve screening uptake for breast, bowel and cervical cancer, with a focus on patients with Serious Mental Illness, Learning Disabilities, or experiencing Homelessness.
Cancer Screening Ethnicity
Shows at a glance which ethnic groups you need to focus on within your improvement work.
North East London primary care or local authority teams should speak to their practice managers or local CEG facilitator for access to the dashboards hub.
Searches
- Available across North East London in your practices support folder, subfolder 3: PCN Support
Our Network Contract DES support searches cover health inequalities, CVD prevention and diagnosis, cancer screening, proactive care for frailty, structured medication reviews, social prescribing, risk stratification, weight management and learning disability health checks. You obtain your call/recall lists from these searches.
View our search guidance for help navigating and using the suite: Network Contract DES practice support searches [PDF 206KB]
Templates
- Available in EMIS Web and SystmOne across North East London
We cannot improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities without comprehensive, good quality data. We provide several clinical data entry templates for both EMIS Web and SystmOne, to support the requirements of the Network Contract DES.
Firstly, all our Long Term Conditions (LTC) templates, New Patient Health Check templates, and many others, have specific pages for:
- Ethnicity and Language and Wider Determinants - these allow practices to collect data on non-medical factors that influence health outcomes.
- Lifestyle Intervention - to help prevent ill health.
Other CEG templates that support the aims of the Network Contract DES are:
- Social Prescribers
- Structured Medication Review
- NHS Health Checks (City & Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest only)
Guidance and expertise
We have written technical guidance to help you to use our Network Contract DES practice support searches:
Our team of facilitators and support officers offer:
- Help using any of CEG's tools and resources
- Practice visits (online and in person)
- Advice for improving in a particular clinical area or target
- CEG orientation for new team members
- Help using our data insight to inform initiatives and commissioning across the region.
Contact your local facilitator to get started.
Webinar: Network Contract DES - Everything you need to succeed
1 October 2025