Supporting Sustainable General Practice in the South West
After three months of development and piloting, NHS England South (South West) has launched an initiative aimed at helping General Practices to considering their sustainability status and to explore options for responding to the current challenges facing General Practice and the wider Primary Care environment.
The initiative has been developed as a result of dedicated NHS England funding for the South West and is led by a dedicated project manager.
The Supporting Sustainable General Practice initiative aims to fulfil NHS England’s ambition to support innovative and improved models of primary care, by designing a process which can take Practices on a journey from the provision of tools to enable to them to identify viability and sustainability, to helping them explore aims and objectives, potential design solutions and transform into sustainable organisational forms
What’s On Offer?
For South West General Practices, NHS England has developed a range of support mechanisms and resources aimed at the initiating and supporting the life cycle of business change, as follows:
- Assessment of General Practices’ sustainability, using the General Practice ‘Health-Check’ Tool
- Presentation and exploration of potential options for business change
- Guided facilitation of discussion within or between General Practices to help consideration of change options and ways forward
- Facilitation of communication between General Practices to initiate collaboration and exploration of partnership initiatives
- Support and guidance for planning business change
- Support and guidance for realising plans and objectives, including provision of project management expertise
- Guided facilitation of discussion between change initiative partnerships to review and consider current outcomes, successes and lessons learnt
- Provision of a range of information resources, including guides to collaboration, networks and federations, mergers and managing projects.
- Access to General Practice ‘early adopter’ innovation models across the South West
Full details, including the suite of information resources, can be found at http://www.england.nhs.uk/south/publications/sustainable-gp/
NHS England has developed these resources and approaches in collaboration with a range of subject matter experts, including:
- Clinical Commissioning Groups
- Local Medical Committees
- General Practitioner Partners
- General Practice Managers and Business Managers
- Regional Pharmacy Personnel
NHS England’s Supporting Sustainable General Practice initiative is being project managed by Robert Connor and is part of the NHS England South (South West) Primary Care Transformation Programme. Heads of Primary Care at NHS England South (South West) are Lesley Woakes (BNSSSG) and Julia Cory (DCIOS).
For more information, contact Robert on 07788 290538 or 0113 824 8945 or by email at robert.connor@nhs.net
Lesley Woakes can be contacted on 0113 825 3605 or 07776 494904 or by email at lesley.woakes@nhs.net
Julia Cory can be contacted on 0113 824 8967 or 07900 715328 or by email at julia.cory@nhs.net
