NHS Care Coordinator Pay 2026/27
Last updated: 4 November 2026 · Figures verified against the NHS Employers 2026/27 pay circular.
Care coordinator pay 2026/27: the Band 4 ladder
England awarded Agenda for Change staff 3.3% from 1 April 2026, and that award is already in these figures. A primary care network care coordinator in England in 2026/27 earns £28,392 at Band 4 entry and £31,157 at the top of Band 4. Band 4 has two pay points, entry and top, with no intermediate step. The gap between the two points is £2,765 a year. That single step is the whole Band 4 story for this role, and it shapes how applicants should read the salary: the entry figure is what a new coordinator starts on, and the top figure is what the same post pays once the coordinator has completed the progression requirements, which the Band 4 pay guide puts at around three years of experience, subject to a satisfactory appraisal and completion of statutory and mandatory training. Progression is not automatic under the 2018 Agenda for Change framework, so the top figure is a destination to work toward, not a starting promise.
The 2026/27 England scales for a full-time 37.5-hour week. Hourly rates are annual pay divided by 52.2 weeks and then by 37.5 hours, rounded to the nearest penny, and enhancement rates on this page are calculated from that rounded hourly rate. Monthly pay is annual pay divided by 12. Weekly pay is annual pay divided by 52.2.
| Band and step | Annual | Monthly | Weekly | Hourly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Band 4 entry | £28,392 | £2,366.00 | £543.91 | £14.50 |
| Band 4 top | £31,157 | £2,596.42 | £596.88 | £15.92 |
One point in that table deserves a second look, because it catches applicants out. The step from Band 4 top to Band 5 entry, at £32,073, is only £916 a year. A coordinator who moves to a Band 5 post therefore gains little in the first year in the higher band, and the real gain comes from reaching the top of the new band and from the extra responsibility that comes with it. That is a general feature of the Agenda for Change ladder, not a quirk of this role, and the Band 5 pay guide sets out the three Band 5 steps in full. For a coordinator weighing a move, the question to ask is not only what the next band pays at entry, but what the post actually involves, because Agenda for Change pays the post, not the person, and a higher band without the matching responsibility will not be matched to that band in the first place.
What a care coordinator actually does, day by day
Care coordination starts with a list, not a waiting room. The network identifies patients whose care needs organising: people with several long-term conditions, people who use several services, people whose care involves more than one practice or team, and people at risk of falling through a gap between services. The coordinator contacts the patient, often by phone, and works through what is supposed to happen next. Is there a personalised care plan, and is it up to date? Are the appointments booked? Have the referrals gone out, and have the results and letters come back? Has anything stalled, and if so, who needs chasing? That sequence, identify, contact, plan, book, chase, follow up, is the daily rhythm of the job, and it repeats across a caseload that is managed, not merely held.
The personalised care plan is the centre of the work, and it is worth describing plainly. It is an agreed plan for one patient, built around what matters to that patient and what their clinicians have decided, and it lists the appointments, referrals, reviews and checks that make up their care. The coordinator does not write the clinical decisions in the plan, but the coordinator makes sure the plan is followed: booking the review, chasing the referral, checking the result, and flagging it to a clinician when a result changes the picture. That is why accuracy matters so much in this role. A missed referral, a letter filed without action, or a review that slips by three months can matter more to a patient with complex needs than to a patient with a single straightforward problem, and the coordinator is the person whose job it is to notice before it becomes a problem.
Multidisciplinary team working is the other half of the job. A patient with complex needs may be seen by a GP, a practice nurse, a pharmacist, a community service and a hospital team, and each of those teams holds part of the picture. The coordinator keeps the shared record straight, prepares the list for the multidisciplinary team meeting, records what the meeting decided, and follows up the actions that came out of it. That follow-up is where coordination either works or fails. A meeting that decides six actions and follows up none of them has achieved nothing, while a coordinator who chases each action to completion has turned a discussion into care. The work is therefore part administration, part patient contact, and part persistence: polite, repeated chasing of busy services, with the patient interest kept in view throughout.
Two boundaries matter, and both protect patients and coordinators. First, coordinators do not diagnose, prescribe or provide clinical treatment: they organise the care that clinicians have decided on, and they refer clinical questions back to a clinician rather than answering them themselves. Second, coordinators are not a substitute for clinical care or for social care: a patient who needs medical treatment or a care assessment still needs it, and a good coordinator says so plainly rather than papering over the gap with another appointment. Those boundaries are also what make the role sustainable. A coordinator who tries to carry every problem personally will burn out, while a coordinator who organises well and knows their limits can carry a managed caseload for years. The neighbouring primary care role is the social prescribing link worker, who focuses on community connection, while the coordinator focuses on care organisation, and the two often work side by side in the same network team.
Not the same job: mental health care coordinators and hospital discharge
The words care coordinator appear in more than one NHS job, and applicants should check which job an advert describes before comparing salaries. In a mental health trust, a care coordinator under the Care Programme Approach is typically a Band 6 post, carrying a clinical caseload with the responsibility that Band 6 implies, and the mental health nurse pay guide notes that Band 6 scale at £39,959 to £48,117. That post is not the primary care network post on this page, and its Band 6 figure should not be read as the pay for a network coordinator. The difference is the job, not the title: a trust care coordinator holds clinical responsibility for a caseload, while a network coordinator organises care and follow-up across practices and services.
Hospital discharge coordination is a second, different job. It centres on getting a patient safely out of hospital, with the transport, equipment, medication and community follow-up that discharge requires, and it sits in a hospital team with hospital pressures and hospital rotas. The network coordinator on this page works the other way round: starting in primary care, organising ongoing care for patients in the community, and preventing the gaps that lead to avoidable hospital contact. An applicant who wants discharge work should look for hospital posts and judge them on their own terms, not on this page. An applicant who wants community-based, primary care coordination work is in the right place here, and should check the advert for the words primary care network, and for the Band 4 figure, before applying.
That distinction also explains why this page quotes a single band. The network role is defined as a Band 4 Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme role, and the queue for this page describes it that way. A network that wants a senior coordination post, with supervision or service leadership, will advertise a different post at a higher band, and that post should be judged on its own description. What this page does not do is invent a senior coordinator scale: no senior scale is quoted, because the verified data file gives the Band 4 scale for this role, and the honest move for a coordinator who wants a higher band is appointment to a higher-banded post, as the Band 4 pay guide explains for Band 4 staff generally.
Who employs care coordinators: networks, federations and the ARRS
A primary care network is a group of GP practices working together across a neighbourhood, typically covering a local population and sharing staff and services that no single practice could run alone. Care coordinators are one of those shared roles, funded through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme that supports extra primary care staff. Some networks employ coordinators directly. Others work through a GP federation, a company owned by local practices that employs staff on the practices behalf. The employer name on the advert tells you which pattern applies, and it matters for terms: a directly employed network coordinator is usually on Agenda for Change terms, while a post employed through a partner may be on that partner terms, which is why this page states its figures as Agenda for Change Band 4 rates and advises checking the advert for any post employed outside Agenda for Change.
No reimbursement rate for the scheme itself is quoted on this page, and that omission is deliberate. The scheme rate is a funding figure for the network, not a salary figure for the coordinator, and it is not in the verified pay data file, so quoting it would break the figures rule this site follows. What matters for an applicant is the salary in the advert, the band in the advert, and the employer in the advert. Those three facts tell you what you will actually be paid, on what terms, and by whom. Everything else about the scheme is background, and a network that describes itself as ARRS funded is describing how the post is paid for, not offering a second salary figure on top of the band rate.
What does not change with the employer pattern is the working pattern. Coordination work is daytime, office and community based work, normally Monday to Friday, with time split between practice bases, phone contact with patients, and community or hospital services that need chasing. A coordinator day might include a morning of patient calls and care plan checks, a multidisciplinary team meeting, an afternoon of referral chasing and letter checks, and time for notes and follow-up lists. Travel between practices is part of the job in a network that spans several practices, which is why the mileage rates guide matters here: business mileage is paid at 59p a mile for a car up to 4,500 miles a year and 36p a mile above that, so 1,000 business miles in a year is worth £590.00 and 4,000 business miles is worth £2,360.00, while home to normal workplace travel is not claimable. A quick check with the hourly rate calculator will turn any of these annual figures into an hourly rate for a different contracted-hours pattern.
Working pattern: daytime, with evening exceptions
Coordination work follows the practice and service calendar rather than a clinical rota. Most contact happens in daytime hours, when practices, community services and hospital teams are reachable, and most coordinators work a standard office-hours week. The exceptions are multidisciplinary team meetings that run into the evening, Saturday clinics, and weekend service events, where a coordinator presence keeps the follow-up moving. Those sessions are the hours that can attract unsocial-hours enhancements, and they are also the hours that test whether a service is genuinely accessible: a review that only happens at 10am on a Tuesday excludes everyone who works, while an evening session reaches a different group entirely.
| Band and step | Plain hourly | Saturday / night | Sunday / bank holiday |
|---|---|---|---|
| Band 4 entry | £14.50 | £18.85 | £23.20 |
| Band 4 top | £15.92 | £20.70 | £25.47 |
Worked example: a Band 4 coordinator at entry who covers an eight-hour Saturday clinic earns eight hours at £18.85, which is £150.80, against £116.00 for eight plain hours, a difference of £34.80 for that session. A Band 4 coordinator at the top step who covers an eight-hour Sunday service event earns eight hours at £25.47, which is £203.76, against £127.36 for eight plain hours, a difference of £76.40. Those examples show the rates clearly, and they also show why they matter less in practice for coordinators than for ward staff: a handful of such days a year, not a rota, is the realistic pattern. The full unsocial-hours rules are explained in the unsocial hours and overtime guide.
Overtime: time and a half at Band 4
At Band 4, hours above 37.5 a week are paid at time and a half, and double time on bank holidays, for posts on Agenda for Change terms. An overtime hour at Band 4 entry is worth £21.75 and at the top of Band 4 £23.88. On a bank holiday the double-time rates are £29.00 at Band 4 entry and £31.84 at the top of Band 4. Part-time staff are paid at plain time, plus any unsocial-hours enhancement that applies, for hours above their contracted hours up to 37.5 a week, with overtime rates only above 37.5 hours. Overtime and unsocial-hours enhancement cannot both be claimed for the same hours. Staff may elect time off in lieu instead of overtime pay.
Worked example: a Band 4 coordinator at the top step who works four extra hours around a service launch, outside any unsocial window, earns four hours at £23.88, which is £95.52 on top of the basic week. The same four hours on a bank holiday would be four hours at £31.84, which is £127.36. Those figures are gross, before tax, National Insurance and pension, and they assume the extra hours sit above 37.5 hours for the week. Extra hours below 37.5 for a part-time coordinator are paid at plain time, so the same four hours for a part-time Band 4 coordinator at entry, up to the full-time threshold, would be four hours at £14.50, which is £58.00, plus any unsocial enhancement that applies to those hours. In practice coordinator overtime clusters around busy referral periods, multidisciplinary team workload peaks and service launches rather than around a regular rota pattern, and a network manager who plans the calendar well keeps overtime low by spreading event cover across the team.
London weighting: High Cost Area Supplement
Where the post is based in a London primary care network on Agenda for Change terms, coordinators receive the High Cost Area Supplement, which is a percentage of basic pay subject to a minimum and a maximum for each zone. The rates are 20% of basic in inner London (minimum £5,794, maximum £8,746), 15% in outer London (minimum £4,870, maximum £6,137) and 5% in the fringe zone (minimum £1,346, maximum £2,270). At Band 4 the minimums matter at entry: the percentages of these salaries fall below the minimums in the inner and outer zones at Band 4 entry, while the fringe percentage sits inside its minimum and maximum. The inner minimum applies at Band 4 entry: 20% of £28,392 is £5,678.40, below the £5,794 minimum, so the minimum applies and the total is £34,186. The outer minimum applies at Band 4 entry the same way: 15% of £28,392 is £4,258.80, below the £4,870 minimum, so the minimum applies and the total is £33,262. The fringe percentage applies at Band 4 entry: 5% of £28,392 is £1,419.60, inside the fringe minimum and maximum, so the percentage applies and the total is £29,811.60. At the top of Band 4, the inner percentage takes over: 20% of £31,157 is £6,231.40, inside the inner minimum and maximum, so the total is £37,388.40, while the outer minimum still applies: 15% of £31,157 is £4,673.55, below the £4,870 minimum, so the minimum applies and the total is £36,027. The full London weighting rules are explained in the London weighting (HCAS) guide.
| Band and step | Basic | Inner London total | Outer London total | Fringe total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Band 4 entry | £28,392 | £34,186 | £33,262 | £29,811.60 |
| Band 4 top | £31,157 | £37,388.40 | £36,027 | £32,714.85 |
One further case in the table above is worth stating, because it is easy to misread. Band 4 top in the fringe zone is a percentage case, not a minimum case: 5% of £31,157 is £1,557.85, inside the fringe minimum and maximum, so the percentage applies and the total is £32,714.85. The supplement follows the base of the post, not the site visited on a given day, so a coordinator who visits a practice across a zone boundary does not pick up that practice supplement for the day. London networks are among the largest coordinator employers, because one network can serve several practices across a dense neighbourhood, but the supplement itself follows the same national table as every other Agenda for Change post.
Pension, part-time pay and the smaller extras
On the provisional 2026/27 England and Wales pension tiers, Band 4 entry sits in the 6.5% tier and Band 4 top sits in the 8.3% tier. That is £153.79 a month on £28,392 and £215.50 a month on £31,157. The employer contributes 23.7% on top, which is £6,728.90 a year at Band 4 entry and £7,384.21 a year at the top of Band 4. The 2026/27 tiers are provisional, calculated from the published 2025/26 tiers, not yet published as final. The tier is set by whole-time-equivalent salary, so a part-time coordinator is tiered on the full-time rate for the post, not on part-time earnings. The contribution tiers in full are set out in the pension contributions guide.
Part-time pay is pro rata on the full-time figure, and the part-time pay guide explains the mechanics. At 0.8 whole-time equivalent, Band 4 entry pays £22,713.60 a year and Band 4 top pays £24,925.60 a year. At 0.6 whole-time equivalent, Band 4 top pays £18,694.20 a year. Unsocial-hours enhancements and overtime are calculated on the same hourly rates as full-time staff, so a part-time coordinator covering a Saturday clinic earns the same enhanced hourly rate as a full-time colleague on the same band and step. Annual leave follows the England tiers of 27 days plus 8 bank holidays up to 4 years of service, 29 plus 8 from 5 years, and 33 plus 8 from 10 years, pro rata for part-time staff. Coordinators are office and community based, so the uniform flat-rate expense that matters for ward staff is not a normal coordinator extra, and no such figure is claimed on this page. The mileage rates guide covers the full Section 17 rules for travel between practices.
Two national notes complete the picture. In Wales, the award is also 3.3%, and the Real Living Wage floor of £13.45 an hour applies at the bottom of the scale, with the Band 2 spot rate at £26,300 in Wales. This page does not quote Wales Band 4 step sets, because those steps are not in the verified data file, and this page states its figures as England figures throughout. The same caution applies to Scotland: Scotland awarded 3.75% from 1 April 2026 under a two-year deal and moved to a 36-hour week from April 2026, which changes the hourly maths for Scottish posts, and the verified data file holds a Scotland Band 5 range of £34,494 to £42,977 but no Scotland Band 4 step set, so no Scotland coordinator step is quoted here. In Northern Ireland, the 3.3% award is recommended but not yet implemented, so staff there should not budget on the England figures until the award is confirmed.
Qualifications: what they open, and what they do not change
Agenda for Change pays the post, not the person, so a Band 4 coordinator post pays the Band 4 rate whatever qualifications the holder brings. What adverts commonly ask for is good communication and organisational skills, the ability to build trust quickly with patients who may be anxious or in difficulty, accurate record keeping, sound judgement about when to refer a clinical question back to a clinician, and the persistence to chase referrals and results until they are complete. Experience in primary care, community, advice, housing, care or health support work transfers well, and many coordinators arrive from exactly those backgrounds. A recognised qualification in administration, health support or community work helps an application, and some coordinators study in post, but no single certificate is stated here as a national pay condition, and no figure on this page depends on one. The honest route in is a track record of organised, reliable work with people, not a single certificate.
There is one more honest point about qualifications. Organisational skill alone does not make a coordinator. The post also needs the professional habits that surround vulnerable people: confidentiality, impartiality, accurate records, and the judgement to refer back to a clinician rather than hold a problem that belongs in clinical care. Networks often recruit senior coordination staff from within their own coordinator teams, because a lead needs to know how the referral pathways, the practice systems and the community services fit together, not just how to hold a good conversation. A coordinator arriving from outside primary care brings strong organisational skills, but should expect a learning period on practice systems, referral pathways and record keeping, and should not assume that a previous salary sets the NHS band: the band follows the post evaluation, not the previous earnings.
Progression: lead coordination, practice roles, or wider primary care leadership
The honest progression story has three directions. The first is upward inside coordination: a Band 4 coordinator who owns complex caseloads, supports less experienced colleagues and leads work across a network service is building the record for a higher-banded lead post, when such a post is advertised. The second direction is sideways into neighbouring primary care roles: coordinators who know practice systems and patient pathways well sometimes move into social prescribing link work, where community connection is the daily work, or into practice administration and management roles, where running a practice team is the job. The third direction is into wider primary care leadership, where running a network community service or a practice team at scale is the job, and where the Band 4 coordination experience of owning follow-up end to end is the direct preparation.
Getting to a higher band needs a higher-banded post, and that is the part that takes planning. The usual route is a track record of strong care plan follow-through across a patch, ownership of complex cases, support for less experienced coordinators, and the judgement that a higher band evaluation looks for. Experience across more than one practice matters, because a lead is judged on the whole network service working well, not on one caseload. A coordinator who wants the lead route should ask their network manager what the higher-banded posts in the service actually do, and should seek the complex cases and service development work that matches that description before the vacancy appears. For coordinators who do not want the lead route, Band 4 coordination posts are skilled jobs in their own right, with the same NHS pension and annual leave as every other Agenda for Change post where Agenda for Change terms apply.
Pay progression
Next steps in primary care: social prescribing link worker pay (Band 4 to 5). Wider band guides: Band 4 pay and Band 5 pay. Primary care neighbours: GP receptionist salary and mileage rates.
Frequently asked questions
What band is a PCN care coordinator?
In England in 2026/27, a primary care network care coordinator sits at Band 4. Band 4 pays £28,392 at entry and £31,157 at the top, for a full-time 37.5-hour week. Band 4 has two pay points, entry and top, with no intermediate step. The gap between entry and top is £2,765 a year. That is the figure for the primary care network role described on this page. Do not confuse it with a mental health trust care coordinator under the Care Programme Approach, which is typically a Band 6 post, or with hospital discharge coordination, which is a different job in a different setting. The band follows the post, not the person, so the advert for the post you are applying for is the authority for its band.
How much does a care coordinator earn a month?
In England in 2026/27, a full-time primary care network care coordinator at Band 4 earns £2,366.00 a month at entry and £2,596.42 a month at the top, before tax, National Insurance and pension deductions. Weekly, the same figures are £543.91 at entry and £596.88 at the top, calculated as annual pay divided by 52.2. Those are gross figures for a full-time 37.5-hour week, before any overtime or London weighting. A part-time coordinator is paid pro rata: at 0.8 whole-time equivalent, Band 4 entry pays £22,713.60 a year and Band 4 top pays £24,925.60 a year, while at 0.6 whole-time equivalent, Band 4 top pays £18,694.20 a year. These figures cover posts banded on Agenda for Change. Where a network or partner employs on its own terms, the advert, not this page, is the authority for that post.
What does a primary care network care coordinator do?
A primary care network care coordinator organises care and follow-up for patients with complex needs, so that nothing falls between services. The work starts with a list, not a waiting room: patients identified by the network, often people with several long-term conditions, people who use several services, or people whose care involves more than one practice or team. The coordinator contacts the patient, agrees a personalised care plan where one is needed, books and chases the appointments and referrals that plan requires, checks that results and letters have arrived, and follows up when a patient misses an appointment or a referral stalls. The coordinator also keeps the multidisciplinary team record straight, so that the GP, the nurse, the pharmacist and any community service involved are working from the same plan. It is organising work with a clinical purpose: the coordinator does not diagnose or prescribe, but the coordinator makes sure the care that has been decided on actually happens, in the right order, without the patient having to chase it themselves.
What is the difference between a care coordinator and a social prescribing link worker?
They work side by side in the same primary care network team, but they do different jobs. A care coordinator organises care and follow-up for patients with complex needs: appointments, referrals, care plans, multidisciplinary team follow-up and the chasing that keeps a plan moving. A social prescribing link worker connects patients with community support: walking groups, debt advice, carers groups, volunteering, housing help and other local services that can steady a life that medicine alone cannot fix. The link worker focuses on community connection, while the coordinator focuses on care organisation. In practice the two roles overlap at the edges, and a patient may be supported by both, but the distinction helps applicants read adverts correctly: a post that centres on care plans and follow-up is coordination work, while a post that centres on community groups and referrals to local services is link work. The link worker role is covered in the social prescribing link worker pay guide, which also sits at Band 4 to Band 5.
Who employs a PCN care coordinator?
Most commonly a primary care network, which is a group of GP practices working together across a neighbourhood, or a GP federation acting for those practices. Care coordinators are a defined Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme role, which is the scheme that funds extra primary care staff for networks. Some networks employ coordinators directly. Others work through a GP federation, a company owned by local practices that employs staff on the practices behalf. The employer name on the advert tells you which pattern applies, and it matters for terms: a directly employed network coordinator is usually on Agenda for Change terms, while a post employed through a partner may be on that partner terms, which is why this page states its figures as Agenda for Change Band 4 rates and advises checking the advert for any post employed outside Agenda for Change. No reimbursement rate for the scheme itself is quoted on this page, because that rate is not in the verified pay data file, and it is a funding figure for the network, not a salary figure for the coordinator.
Do care coordinators get unsocial hours pay?
Care coordination is largely daytime, office and community based work, so unsocial-hours enhancements are uncommon, but the Section 2 rates still apply to any hours that fall in an unsocial window. For Band 4, which sits in the Bands 4 to 9 group, the rates are time plus 30% for Saturdays and weekday nights (8pm to 6am) and time plus 60% for Sundays and bank holidays. A Saturday hour at Band 4 entry is therefore worth £18.85 against a plain rate of £14.50, and a Sunday hour at the top of Band 4 is worth £25.47 against a plain rate of £15.92. In practice the only coordinator hours that commonly fall in those windows are an evening multidisciplinary team meeting that runs late, a Saturday clinic or a weekend service event, and nobody should take a coordinator post expecting regular unsocial-hours income. The rates matter mainly as a protection: if the job does ask for a Saturday, the enhancement is contractual, not discretionary, for posts on Agenda for Change terms.
Do care coordinators get overtime pay?
At Band 4, yes: hours above 37.5 a week are paid at time and a half, and double time on bank holidays, for posts on Agenda for Change terms. An overtime hour at Band 4 entry is worth £21.75 and at the top of Band 4 £23.88. On a bank holiday the double-time rates are £29.00 at Band 4 entry and £31.84 at the top of Band 4. Part-time staff are paid at plain time, plus any unsocial-hours enhancement that applies, for hours above their contracted hours up to 37.5 a week, with overtime rates only above 37.5 hours. Overtime and unsocial-hours enhancement cannot both be claimed for the same hours. Staff may elect time off in lieu instead of overtime pay. In practice coordinator overtime clusters around busy referral periods, multidisciplinary team workload peaks and service launches rather than around a regular rota.
How much do care coordinators earn in London?
Where the post is based in a London primary care network on Agenda for Change terms, coordinators receive the High Cost Area Supplement: 20% of basic in inner London (minimum £5,794, maximum £8,746), 15% in outer London (minimum £4,870, maximum £6,137) and 5% in the fringe zone (minimum £1,346, maximum £2,270). At Band 4 the minimums matter at entry, because the percentages of these salaries fall below the minimums in the inner and outer zones. Band 4 entry pays £34,186 in inner London, because 20% of £28,392 is £5,678.40, below the £5,794 minimum, so the minimum applies. Band 4 entry pays £33,262 in outer London, because 15% of £28,392 is £4,258.80, below the £4,870 minimum, so the minimum applies. Band 4 top pays £37,388.40 in inner London, because 20% of £31,157 is £6,231.40, inside the minimum and maximum, so the percentage applies. Band 4 top pays £36,027 in outer London, because 15% of £31,157 is £4,673.55, below the £4,870 minimum, so the minimum applies. The supplement follows the base of the post, not the site visited on a given day.