Despite no funding for a manager being included within the PCN DES, the PCN manager has quickly established itself as a crucial role.  As PCNs continue to grow in terms of staff and responsibilities, so has the importance of the PCN manager.  But the role does not come without its challenges, and many who have taken it on are finding the going tough.  How, then, can PCN managers make their role a success?

I recently spoke to PCN management expert Tara Humphrey, and out of that conversation distilled 5 important actions PCN managers should take to be successful in the role:

1. Be Clear What Success Look Like

The challenge facing many new PCN managers is the PCN into which they are arriving has often not made explicit what actually constitutes success for the PCN.  Indeed, in many PCNs, success can mean different things to different people within it.  If the PCN is not clear what success looks like, it will be impossible for the incoming PCN manager to achieve it!

The trick for the PCN manager is not to assume that simply delivering the PCN DES requirements constitutes success.  If it is not explicit, ask those in PCN what success looks like for them.  Listen carefully to the answers.  Play back what you have heard and get sign up from the PCN as a whole.

When you are clear what success looks like, use it as your guiding principle.  When faced with competing priorities or pressures on your time, use how it will impact on the success of the PCN as your way of making decisions.  This will also help you not to feel like a CCG manager or someone adding workload to the practices, but rather someone supporting them to achieve what they want with the PCN.

2. Form a Strong Partnership with the PCN Clinical Director

The really successful PCN managers are those who have formed a strong partnership with their PCN CD, and are clear on what each of their roles are.  The two need to work as a team, playing to each other’s strengths, and compensating for each other’s weaknesses.  For example, one might be great at building relationships and communicating with the practices, while the other might be better at understanding and distilling the guidance as it comes in from NHS England and the CCG.

The PCN Clinical Director will always retain overall accountability for the PCN’s success, but what actions the PCN CD and PCN manager respectively take to ensure this success is up to them.  Key is that the two of them create a strong partnership and work together, and the better they do this the more likely success will follow.

3. Build Strong Relationships with the PCN Practice Managers

The practice managers can make or break a PCN manager.  If a PCN manager can build strong relationships with and earn the trust of the practice managers in the PCN, and have open channels of communication through them into each of the practices, their chances of success are really high.  But if they fail to get the practice managers on side they will really struggle to be successful in the role.

I have already seen a number of instances where PCN managers have had to leave their roles because they lost the confidence of the practice managers.  If the practice managers are regularly complaining about the PCN manager to their GPs, who in turn pass on these concerns to the PCN CD, the position is more or less unsustainable.

4. Decide Whether to Work With or Round the Difficult Practice or GP

There is always one!  I am yet to meet a PCN where there was not at least one GP (or more often than not a whole practice) who is at best disinterested in the PCN and at worst obstructive to whatever the PCN is trying to achieve.  For the PCN manager there are two choices.  Do they invest significant time and effort into getting this GP/practice on side, so that the work of the PCN can progress?  Or do they focus their attention on the other, more willing GPs and practices to ensure that any attempts to derail progress are not successful?

Each situation is different, and the right approach to take in any individual PCN will depend on the local circumstances, but what the PCN manager has to do is work out which tactic is best and then make that approach work.

5. Communicate More Than You Think You Need To

For a PCN to be successful, it needs to do two things.  First, take actions and make progress towards its goals, and second communicate these actions and successes to its members.  Most PCN managers understand and do the former, but then completely underestimate the importance of the second.  The result is those in the PCN are generally not aware of just how much the PCN has achieved.

As a PCN manager your days are spent on PCN business.  It is easy to think everyone else has the same level of knowledge of what is going on as you do.  But others in the PCN have busy other jobs and are not as immersed in it as you are, and they quickly forget what the PCN is up to.

Communicating via a once a month PCN meeting is not enough.  There needs to be WhatsApp groups (or equivalent) and a regular email update/newsletter (probably weekly) as a minimum.  Some PCNs have gone as far as setting up their own podcast simply to communicate internally where they are up to.

Success breeds success, and using communication to ensure that not only is the PCN successful but that it is perceived as being successful is vital for future and ongoing success.