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Robert Varnam almost needs no introduction. He is a GP in Manchester and Head of General Practice Development at NHS England. He will be known to most people in general practice for his work around the national Time for Care Programme. In his second visit to the General Practice Podcast he talks to Ben about the development of Primary Care Networks and how the learning needs of PCN clinical leaders might be identified and met.

Show Notes

Robert describes the recent changes to his role – focussing on improvement (0:58)

The introduction of Primary Care Networks (1:54)

Variations in the progress of PCNs (3:28)

How delivering “improvement” to general practice is impacted by PCNs (4:44)

Establishing the PCN – a collaborative opportunity (6:54)

Making the best use of the development resources available (8:32)

Networks using expert facilitation to support development (10:24)

Developing the PCN clinical directors – a collective approach to leadership (12:40)

The value of investing in leaders (14:30)

A network of networks (15:04)

Establishing the learning needs of clinical directors (15:44)

Working with peers (17:29)

Practical resources for networks (18:57)

Contacting Robert (20:05)

The website Source4Networks can be found here

Robert can be contacted directly at robert.varnam@nhs.net

The first podcast we ran with Robert can be accessed here