Article Support for practices & PCNs from our Excellence in Practice team

We often get asked ‘can the Excellence in Practice team help us?’ The short answer is, yes! We are always willing to hear what help practices and PCNs need and will give you a straight answer as to how we - or other organisations - can help you.

Initial advice is free

Initial advice and support will always be provided free of charge, including likely costs and any potential funding sources.  Practices and PCN’s can commission work directly from Kernow Health CIC where extra capacity or expertise is needed to help with a major project or a merger. However, a lot of our work with practices and PCN’s is funded by NHS Kernow. For example, where there are resilience issues or for specific projects like the Primary Care Estates Toolkit work. We also work closely with the rest of the Integrated Primary Care and the Training Hub, so sometimes it is just a case of signposting you to help that is already available (and funded) that you might not be aware of.

Pressure on practices

NHS Kernow is very conscious of the pressures being faced by GP practices and many practices reading this will have already been referred to our team and offered funded resilience support by NHS Kernow. If a practice or practices are not quite sure of the best way forward, we often suggest an away day to give people time to come together and make a plan. Excellence in Practice Associate, Nicola Davies, explains: “Facilitated by a member of the Excellence in Practice team, we can cover one specific area or multiple issues during a session with the whole team.”

Denys Rayner, also an Excellence in Practice Associate, has been working with practices and PCNs to support them in developing their people and direction:

We have been able to tailor our approach to meet the needs of each organisation and focus on undertaking surveys in advance of the sessions to gauge the issues and concerns so that they can be addressed in the meetings. The practices and PCNs have found this to be really valuable, especially in situations where practices have merged or PCNs are seeking to address issues that have restricted their development. The opportunity to have independent but system knowledgeable facilitation has proved so beneficial that this is now becoming very popular to support practices and PCNs during this period of great pressure and change.

‘Data is a powerful tool’

At times, practices need specific support with data analysis or change management. Excellence in Practice Associate, James Davies, is a specialist in this area:

Data is a powerful tool that can be used to help primary care provide better care for its patients and better ways of working for its staff. By leveraging data we can track patient demand, resources and outcomes, allowing us to understand our patient population and provide better, more targeted care. Coupled with maximising the benefits of technology practices can also improve the efficiency of practice systems, streamline processes, and make better decisions about staffing and resources. But the question is how? How do we use the data we hold and link it with external sources and utilise technology to realise these benefits when practices are already under so much pressure.

The Excellence in practice team can help. Our team can provided analysis of practice data including appointment, clinical, telephone and digital systems to help you better understand your practice population and your demand. We can review your use of technology and your exciting IT and Telephony to see if there are improvements that can be made. We can also help you skill up your own team to be able to undertake this sort of work going forward.

Experienced management support

We are well positioned to support practices when facilitated discussions or experienced management is needed in - or between - practices or PCNs. Topics so far have included: options for avoiding a contract hand-back or dealing with the consequences of one, thinking how practices can work more effectively including planning joint working or for a merger, premises including options for sale and leaseback or helping to deal with a specific issue. Nicola Davies adds:

We can offer support specifically to new-in-post Practice Managers or Assistant Practice Managers to ensure that the first few months are not so tricky. We can also support where there is a very specific issue that the practice manager would like to look at. We can also link managers in primary care to mentoring and coaching through a funded scheme with Kernow Health CIC.

Don’t forget this website has plenty of helpful tools and links or if you would like a chat, do contact via our email: kernowhealthcic.eip@nhs.net