The clock is already ticking. Following the recent publication of the new GP contract, GP practices only have until the 15th May to submit their network registration information to their CCG. Waiting until the Network Contract DES is published (promised by 29th March) will only leave 6 weeks. Starting now gives practices three months to get ready for the new networks.
But where to start? It is tempting to jump straight in to what the network will look like and how it will operate. But a better place to start is with “why?” Why will this network exist? What is its purpose? What difference is it going to make?
Simon Sinek talks about this lot. His book, “Start with Why”, has inspired many. For the time poor, you might want to cut straight to this 5 minute short version Ted talk to understand the essence of it. Essentially, people are inspired by a sense of purpose. It is this that motivates us to take action. Clarity on why we do things leads to much more sustained action than clarity on what we are to do or how we are to do it.
The GP contract offers a number of possible motivations for primary care networks. They are (p25):
- “Intended to dissolve the historic divide between primary and community services”
- “A way of helping GP partnerships survive and evolve over the coming decade, and provide a means of mutual support for better workload management”
- “A dedicated joint investment and delivery vehicle”, a way of enabling investment into primary care where it cannot reasonably be expected for every practice to deliver the requirements on their own”
- “Large enough to run a full multi-disciplinary team”, a way of bringing new roles into general practice”
- “A clear geographical locus for improving health and wellbeing”
- “To provide strategic and clinical leadership to help support change across primary and community health services”
Each area is different. One, some or all of these may work for you. More likely there will need to be some adaptation, some local tailoring, to create an ambition that is inspiring for your GPs and the practice staff in your network.
It will be easy to get lost in creating a network simply because you have to. Or in tactics to try and maximise income received. Or in the details of how the network will operate. But networks present a huge opportunity for general practice, not just for now but for many years to come. Decisions made in the next 3 months are like to have long lasting consequences because these networks will grow in importance.
Even though time is short, time invested now in determining the why of their network for member practices will be time well spent. It will create unity, excitement even, and a shared sense of purpose. It will make delivery down the line much easier, and sustain action well beyond the initial network submission deadlines.
1 Comment
It seems obvious to me it’s about creating structures that are more capable of surviving another decade of constrained funding, and more intensively rationing patients’ access to GPs, hardly motivating since it seems any efficiency savings that are made are will be viewed by the govt. as an opportunity rather than achievement and will likely just be eaten up by more and deeper cuts.
In an ideal world, this rationing would kick in gradually, allowing fine-tuning of the algorithm that decides whether a patient with a particular presentation sees a pharmacist, a nurse, a PA or a GP. Instead it’s going to be rushed and myself and many others think patients, particularly those with mental health issues, rare diseases and non-specific symptoms underlying a major condition are going to fall through the cracks, for little reason other than this rushed integration is far more politic since it forces GPs to act quickly to prevent things really falling apart.