Module 2 – Building successful Primary Care Networks

Unit 1 – Setting up the PCN Partnership

An essential first step in building successful Primary Care Networks is to understand and define the concept of primary care network, how this fits with the wider health and social care system, as well as the type of partnership that the PCN is.

We know from the NHS Policies that a PCN is a geographically contiguous teams of practices caring for a population of 30,000 to 50,000 people delivering data-driven integrated multi-disciplinary team based services. We also know that its purpose is to:

• stabilise general practice, including the GP partnership model
• address capacity gaps and improve skill-mix by growing the wider workforce by over 20,000 wholly additional staff as well as helping to increase GP and nurse numbers
• become a proven platform for further local NHS investment
• dissolve the divide between primary and community care, with PCNs looking out to community partners not just in to fellow practices
• systematically deliver new services to implement the Long Term Plan, including the seven new service specifications, and achieved clear, positive and quantified impacts for people, patients and the wider NHS.

Unit 2 – Developing powerful PCN Partnerships

Academics Huxham and Vangen (2005) said that because collaborations were inherently difficult, ‘you should only collaborate is the task requires collaboration to succeed.’

So, it is not surprising to discover that when PCNs do come together, they spend most of their time focusing on the ‘deal’ aspects of the PCN – the integration of services they seek to deliver together.

However, the essence of good ‘Collaborative Leadership’ is all about getting the right balance between the deal (what we want to achieve by working together) and the relationship (how we work together as a team to realise the deal and the other challenges that are likely to arise). Get this balance in kilter and working collaboratively across the PCN becomes easier.

To help you achieve this, we devised a simple framework you can use to guide the facilitative process enabling the teams themselves to address the ‘deal’ and ‘relationship’ aspects of PCN working in a positive way. The process is as follows:

It is important to remember to get all member practices commitment to using this simple framework to guide their discussions on setting up and developing the PCN Partnership. The member practices will need to understand the benefits this framework can bring to them, as they seek to engage their staff in the setting up of the PCN partnerships.

You may well be asked to facilitate these team meeting sessions, as they seek to establish their own understanding of the PCN partnership and how it will change the way that they work together and with others across the partnership. Managing member practice expectations will be important too. This Unit of this module will build your understanding on how to structure and facilitate these meetings using the 4-step process. It also provides you with the tools and templates you can use when facilitating strategic discussions across your PCN.

Unit 3 – Building Multi-Disciplinary Teams

Based on Newman’s (2011) work on innovation teams and SSA’s work with collaborative teams across the public sector, we noted that high performing and innovative multi-agency teams were built on four foundations: hearts and behaviours, a shared approach, a common purpose and leveraging each other’s organisations.

What marks out successful collaborative teams is the level of trust they have built over time and the clarity and commitment they have for their common purpose. As we previously outlined, it’s all about trust and vision. Successful teams spend time at the outset building trust (hearts and minds) and a shared vision (common purpose). These are the first two building blocks for successful collaborative team working.

Next the team must determine how it makes change happen. This has two aspects: a common approach to innovation (shared approach), and a willingness to go back into their own organisations when needed to ensure that their resources are leveraged behind the noble cause (leveraging your organisation).

This Unit looks at the building blocks of successful multi-disciplinary teams, the different types of teams that you might experience across a PCN, and the roles involved in a multi-disciplinary team.

Unit 4 – Returning to you

The first three units are focused on the setting up and development of Primary Care Networks as well as the multi-disciplinary teams working across the PCNs. When combined, these elements make up the basic template for HOW TO DO collaboration within the PCN context. The last unit, Unit 4, examines HOW TO BE collaborative.

Working across PCNs and in multidisciplinary teams will require you to lead beyond departmental silos and organisational boundaries, facilitate the process, whilst making change happen when you don’t have positional power or authority, regardless of the discipline you have.

As Middleton (2007) explained, someone with the capability to lead beyond the boundaries of their own authority do this by ‘adopting real interest in people and building consensus, verses the traditional focuses on gaining power by whatever means, resulting in leaders still gaining “integrity and authenticity” and therefore power’.

Ultimately, successful multidisciplinary team working will require successful collaborative leaders.

Unit 4 will provide you with an opportunity to reflect on the skills and behaviours required to be successful in your PCN and/or the multi-disciplinary team you are working in and identify your areas of development.