A GP Practice Cluster is a grouping of GPs and Practices locally determined by an individual NHS Wales Local Health Board (LHB).
GPs in the Clusters play a key role in supporting the ongoing work of a Locality Network.
The grouping of GP Practices into GP Practice Clusters aims to support peer review across the practices associated with each Locality Network.
GPs in these practices will assist with the future planning of locality healthcare services.
In population terms, the grouping of GP Practices into a GP Practice Cluster relates only to the combined registered practice populations of those practices. The registered practice populations of a GP Practice Cluster will not directly map to the geographic areas for which Locality Networks are defined as having responsibility. However, for some aspects of Locality Network functioning, services provided by those GP practices will be relevant.
A GP Practice Cluster does not have a physical boundary and should not be compared with or aggregated up to other geographically based boundaries used for the analysis of healthcare data, such as Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs), Middle Super Output Area (MSOAs), Unitary Authorities (UA) and electoral wards. Therefore, GP Practice Cluster populations should never be used in any geographically-based analysis of healthcare data.