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Our Health Partnership in Birmingham is the biggest GP partnership in the UK covering 32 practices, 150 partners and a population of 280,000. Ben talks to Managing Director Dr Mark Newbold in the second of our podcast series tracking the progress of OHP, and discovers how the partnership works, what the benefits are and what lessons have been learnt so far.

Show Notes

Progress in making Our Health Partnership the biggest GP partnership in the UK (34secs)

A single legal partnership – not a federation (1mins 35secs)

How does the model maintain the local feel (2mins 22secs)

The founding principles of Our Health Partnership (3mins 26secs)

Practices as profit centres (4mins 10secs)

Clusters of practices sharing functions (4mins 42secs)

What do the practices get from the “centre” (5mins 22secs)

The objectives of Our Health Partnership see below

Practices pay a levy but get much of it back in benefit (7mins 01secs)

Six months on – is it still a “grassroots movement”? (9mins 12secs)

A stronger voice for the practices – a challenge in Birmingham (10mins 34secs)

Large practices are the future – developing new models of care (11mins 48secs)

Practices need to be big enough to make it work (13mins 10secs)

What makes the model work? (14mins 26secs)

Developing from a shared vision (15mins 41secs)

The lessons learned – getting the fundamentals in place and being clear about the ethos (16mins 10secs)

The role of the CCG (16mins 52secs)

Who holds the contracts? (17mins 57secs)

How can interested practices contact Mark? (19mins 15secs)

The Our Health Partnership website can be found here

If you are interested in working with/meeting with Our Health Partnership, please complete the proforma available on their website here and send to MD@ourhealthpartnership.com

Mark can be contacted directly at marknewbold51@gmail.com

Our Health Partnership Objectives 2016/17

We will make life better for patients and partners by:

1. Introducing a quality support offer, with provision of benchmarking data, to member practices to support quality improvement, and aid preparation for CQC inspections
2. Collaborating on Local Enhanced Services including ACE delivery to develop standard OHP templates and to implement the ambulance triage system across our practices. We will develop a bid to access ACE funding in 2017/18 and continue this work further
3. Exploring options for new ways of working, and staff development, in conjunction with HEWM, and share best practice within the ACE programme through training
4. Developing a range of initiatives to support temporary staffing needs in practices:

• A GP locum database and internal GP locum solution
• An internal staffing bank to offer nursing, other clinical and administrative support
• A salaried doctors pool to provide consistent high quality support to practices

5. Developing a strategy for improving access to primary care, to include both increased use of technology and provision of a 7 day service

We will create efficiencies for our Partner Practices by:

6. Introducing centralised payroll for all staff
7. Implementing a centralised finance and banking facility utilising a single software system
8. Providing a centralised legal facility
9. Providing a centralised HR facility
10. Introducing centralised procurement to offer the following to practices:

• A procurement solution for consumables
• Medical indemnity cover, practice insurance, and utility contracts at lower cost
• Exploring options for greater efficiency in back office functions

We will ensure the sustainability of our organisation by:

11. Developing a strong OHP brand, underpinned by a Communications Strategy
12. Ensuring we grow by 20% in order to maintain efficiency and influence
13. Remaining involved in the strategic development of GP at scale at local and national levels
14. Continually improving our Board capability via a development programme

As an ambitious organisation, committed to primary care development, we will align our developmental objectives with those of NHS England, and take opportunities that arise, to ensure steady and sustainable growth in line with our vision

We will develop our organisation by:

15. Working closely with primary care partners including BIG Practice to establish a strong and influential voice for general practice in the local health system
16. Exploring the option of bidding, with a partner, for the Urgent Care Centre procurement
17. Exploring business opportunities such as referral triage, subject to assessment of risk and benefit to OHP
18. Contributing to research in relevant areas and rigorously evaluating our own progress
19. Evaluating options for funded development including digital primary care advances, social prescribing and commercial partnerships
20. Putting a detailed plan in place for developing into a Multispecialty Community Provider / Accountable Care Organisation