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It was break time in a workshop for GP practice managers in the South West, and one of the attendees made a beeline for me. “I need to tell you I’m REALLY ANGRY!” she said, as she got closer and closer. I’m not a body language expert, but I didn’t actually need her to tell me – I could see.
She continued, “I’ve spent the past year or more trying to free up GP time for more complex needs. It’s been exhausting and really unsuccessful. And I’ve just spoken with a manager from 4 miles down the road who’s been working on the same thing, but has had good results. And, listening to her, there are ideas there that I could have tried and I think they would have worked – and I’m REALLY ANGRY that the NHS doesn’t share what’s working so the rest of us don’t have to struggle so much!”
That hit me right between the eyes. There are good ideas – solutions to everyday challenges – all around the NHS. And she was right – others rarely hear about them, or we hear about them in a way that seems irrelevant or unappealing.
That conversation sealed a determination in me to do more to gather and share practical solutions to the big challenges facing primary care in the UK. It fuelled my creation of a movement called Time for Care at the heart of a new £2.4bn national policy, the General Practice Forward View. And the momentum’s still going strong.
Last week I spent the day with the primary care clinical directors of Worcestershire. Part of the agenda was a “quick update” from each PCN about how they’re approaching some of the big priorities for this year. The energy level went through the rood. The most common word I heard around the room was “REALLY?!”, followed by a version of “tell me more – how have you done that?”.
This is a county where clinical directors have really well-established routines of meeting together. They’re ahead of much of the country in their togetherness. Yet, an hour into the sharing time, I asked if anyone thought they should do more of this kind of sharing – the answers surprised even an optimist like me…
Survey of PCN leads in Worcestershire
I think there are lots of reasons, and it’s worth clarifying what they are in your neck of the woods before you get into improving the situation. But here are the biggest things I’ve seen:
There are always reasons why we're bad at sharing what's good in the #NHS. But none of them is enough to excuse it. Your 'normal' could be someone else's startling innovation. #SharingIs#Caring
@robertvarnam Tweet
… and let me know how it goes, or if I can help.
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