Public Health Screening Coordination for Primary Care Managers Training Course

Course overview

Primary care managers are often responsible for making population screening programmes work at practice level while balancing appointment capacity, data quality, patient access, clinical governance and public health targets. Missed invitations, incomplete demographic records, unclear ownership of follow-up and inconsistent exception coding can lead to late diagnosis, inequitable uptake and avoidable operational pressure. This course equips managers to coordinate screening activity as a controlled service pathway rather than as a series of administrative tasks.

Participants learn how to map screening pathways from eligible population identification through invitation, attendance, result handling, recall, referral and programme reporting. They practise using call-recall registers, cohort segmentation, data-quality checks, escalation protocols, capacity plans and performance dashboards. The course addresses breast, cervical, bowel, cardiovascular and other locally commissioned screening pathways while distinguishing population screening from case finding and diagnostic testing. Participants also learn to identify barriers affecting underserved groups, apply proportionate outreach methods, protect confidential information and monitor programme risks.

Teaching combines instructor-led briefings with practical register reviews, simulated screening incidents, dashboard exercises and facilitated planning workshops. Participants work with realistic primary care datasets to identify non-attenders, overdue follow-up actions, coding gaps and capacity bottlenecks. Each participant leaves with a tailored Screening Coordination Improvement Plan, including a pathway map, KPI set, escalation matrix, data-quality checklist and 90-day implementation actions that can be adapted for their practice, primary care network or community health service.

The course is designed for managers who supervise screening administration, population health work, care navigation or operational delivery in primary care. It is equally valuable for managers preparing to improve performance across several practices, establish consistent governance arrangements or respond to concerns raised through audit, commissioner review or safeguarding processes.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map an end-to-end screening pathway from cohort identification to result follow-up and referral closure
• Build a call-recall register that records eligibility, invitation status, attendance, outcome and outstanding actions
• Segment eligible populations using age, risk, deprivation, language and attendance data to target outreach
• Calculate screening uptake, coverage, conversion and overdue-follow-up indicators using defined numerator and denominator rules
• Design a data-quality audit for demographic fields, screening codes, exclusions, refusals and result-status recording
• Create an escalation matrix for abnormal results, non-attendance, safeguarding concerns and unclosed referrals
• Develop an equity-focused outreach plan using barrier analysis, trusted messengers and accessible communications
• Produce a 90-day Screening Coordination Improvement Plan with owners, milestones, KPIs and governance reviews

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Primary Care Managers — who own practice-level screening performance, staffing and operational governance
• Primary Care Network Managers — who coordinate population health initiatives and shared delivery across member practices
• Practice Operations Managers — who need to align appointments, recalls, coding and administrative workflows
• Population Health Managers — who use cohort data to improve uptake and reduce avoidable inequalities
• Care Navigation Leads — who supervise patient contact, follow-up and referral tracking processes
• Community Health Service Managers — who coordinate screening access, outreach and handovers with primary care

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course. Participants should understand the basic purpose of primary care, patient registration and routine administrative workflows, and should be comfortable working with tables in Microsoft Excel, such as filtering, sorting and reviewing records. Familiarity with a clinical system, local screening programmes or population health reporting is useful but not essential. Participants do not need clinical qualifications, advanced epidemiology, SQL, Power BI experience or prior responsibility for a screening programme. Complete beginners should expect to work with realistic screening scenarios and learn the terminology, controls and metrics from first principles.

Training methodology

An experienced instructor leads short, focused sessions on screening operations, governance and population-health analytics, followed by guided application to realistic primary care cases. Participants review anonymised call-recall data in Microsoft Excel, define measures in a simple dashboard, and work in groups to resolve missed-result, non-attendance and capacity scenarios. Workshops use pathway maps, RACI assignments, risk logs and escalation matrices rather than abstract discussion. On the final day, each participant builds and receives feedback on a practical 90-day improvement plan for their own service context.

Course outline

Day 1: Screening programmes, pathways and managerial accountability

• Population screening versus case finding, diagnostic testing and health checks
• Wilson and Jungner screening principles and benefit-harm balance
• Primary care responsibilities within commissioned screening pathways
• End-to-end pathway mapping from eligibility to referral closure
• Roles, RACI assignments and handover points between practice, laboratory and provider
• Screening governance, incident reporting and audit evidence
• Local policy translation into standard operating procedures

Workshop: Participants map a selected screening pathway and produce a RACI chart identifying ownership, handovers and control points.

Day 2: Call-recall operations and data-quality control

• Eligibility rules, age cohorts, risk groups and exclusion criteria
• Call-recall register design and minimum data fields
• Invitation cycles, reminder sequences and non-responder workflows
• Clinical coding for invitations, refusals, deferrals, exclusions and outcomes
• Demographic data validation for address, contact, ethnicity and language fields
• Duplicate records, list inflation and patient registration changes
• Data-quality audit sampling and corrective-action logs

Workshop: Participants audit a sample call-recall register in Microsoft Excel and produce a prioritised data-quality correction log.

Day 3: Performance measurement, capacity and equity

• Uptake, coverage, positivity, conversion and follow-up KPI definitions
• Numerator and denominator rules for reliable screening reporting
• Cohort segmentation by deprivation, ethnicity, disability, language and attendance history
• Microsoft Power BI dashboard design for screening performance reviews
• Appointment capacity modelling and backlog prioritisation
• Barrier analysis for underserved and seldom-heard populations
• Targeted outreach channels, accessible communications and community partners

Workshop: Participants build a screening performance view and produce an equity-focused outreach plan for a low-uptake cohort.

Day 4: Results management, escalation and information governance

• Result receipt, reconciliation and closed-loop follow-up controls
• Abnormal-result workflows and referral tracking registers
• Escalation thresholds for overdue actions and uncontactable patients
• Safeguarding, mental capacity and reasonable-adjustment considerations
• Information sharing, consent boundaries and minimum-necessary access
• GDPR records management, retention and audit trails
• Risk registers, incident reviews and corrective-preventive actions

Workshop: Participants resolve a missed abnormal-result case and produce an escalation matrix, risk entry and corrective-action plan.

Day 5: Implementing sustainable screening improvement

• Baseline assessment using pathway, data and performance evidence
• Root-cause analysis with five whys and fishbone diagrams
• Prioritisation using impact-effort and risk scoring matrices
• Screening standard operating procedure and checklist development
• Team briefing, training and competency-assessment plans
• Monthly governance meetings, KPI packs and exception reporting
• Ninety-day implementation planning and benefits tracking

Workshop: Participants present a 90-day Screening Coordination Improvement Plan containing KPIs, owners, milestones, risks and review arrangements.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power BI, REDCap, Wilson and Jungner screening principles

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions