Resilience

Growing Resilience in General Practice 

At the LMC we know that sometimes practises need a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses in order to face the challenges of working in General Practice. To support GP’s we have developed a Resilience support package.  Not all elements are necessary for every practice – but our team can help you to understand how to build your resilience.

Partner Competency-Based Self-Assessment Tool

This self-assessment tool is designed to test a Partner’s confidence in eight key areas; Four competencies are identified as Leadership and Governance skills and four competencies are Management skills.

The tool aims to help Partnerships better understand their competencies as a team and to identify gaps in the group’s skills or experience.

Read more here

Practice Healthcheck Questionnaire (PHQ) 

This is an online tool that GMS practices complete (takes about 10-15minutes) which provides a high-level summary of how resilient the practice is. Each practice gets an individualised feedback report, showing their overall score, identifying areas where they can increase their resilience, and giving comparative data so they can benchmark themselves against other practices.

As of November 2019, 138 practices have completed the PHQ (70% of the GMS practices in our area) and so we now have a dataset that is large enough for us to do some statistical analysis on the drivers of practice resilience. A full report is available here.

 

General Practice Resilience Programme (GPRP) 

This programme of work started in 2017 when we were commissioned by NHS England to provide a programme of resilience support to practices as part of the GP Forward View. Practices in the programme meet twice with the LMC Resilience Team to discuss their circumstances and complete the Resilience Assessment Tool (RAT). The RAT is an in-depth tool that builds on the resilience areas identified in the PHQ. It takes a practice around two hours to complete and is then analysed by the LMC and leads to the development of an action plan for the practice.

The aim of the programme is to help practices identify actions that they can take to improve their resilience and long-term planning. Since initially being commissioned in 2017 to work with practice across the LMCs footprint, it has since been recommissioned by both Bedfordshire CCG and BLMK STP. By November 2019, 40 practices have completed this programme.

 

General Practice Development Programme (GPDP) 

Following the initial success our resilience work, we were commissioned by BLMK STP to develop a new programme to run in parallel with the GPRP, that would be offered to resilient practices who were keen to keep developing. The programme is aimed at ensuring these practices maintain and improve their resilience, so they are in a position to both benefit from the opportunities and deal with the challenges being created by development of integrated care systems.

The programme uses three tools to support practice development. Firstly, it uses the RAT used in the GPRP to help practices understand and improve their overall resilience. Secondly, it uses an external financial audit company to conduct a “financial MOT” on the practice to ensure they have the correct systems and governance process in place as they grow their income. Finally, it uses a Motivational Mapping tool to help the partnership better understand their strengths and how they can utilise these to the greatest effect.

 

Business Fundamentals Programmes

Following our initial resilience work with practices we identified that many GPs lacked a good understanding of their business. Most GP partners have had no business training and do not have the skills to run a sustainable practice.  in 2018, we designed the Business Fundamentals Programme to provide GPs with an opportunity to acquire these skills. The modular course takes place over a six-month period, with practical workshops covering law, HR, finance, digital healthcare, operations, business planning, leadership and strategic planning.

The programmes have been funded by Herts & West Essex and BLMK ICS Training Hubs and over the years we have extended this offer to Practice and Business Managers, non clinical Partners and allied healthcare professionals interested in practice development, leadership, strategic planning and partnerships.  We have also offered a New to Practice programme which is an introduction to the business basics at operational level.

 

Mentoring Programme for GPs

The NHSE Supporting Mentors Scheme, supports GPs with mentoring sessions, as well as provide a fully funded qualification (ILM5 or 7 in Coaching and Mentoring) and a development support package for mentors for 2 years.

For further information, please contact:

 

Practice Mergers

In simple terms, a practice merger is when two or more practices join together to form a single practice. Ultimately, each practice wishing to merge will need to weigh up the potential advantages and disadvantages of merging to establish whether it is right for them.

The ‘Beds & Herts LMC Guide to Practice Mergers’ is intended to act as a guide for practices that are considering merging and to give an overview of areas that need to be considered through the merger process.

This toolkit has been created with advice sought from organisations that are involved in the merger process as well as input from various practices within Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire that have merged. Please note this guide is not exhaustive but aims to highlight the main areas and concerns to be considered if merging and full support should be taken from relevant, professional advisors throughout the process. The document has been prepared with support from LMC Law, HBLICT, Herts Valleys CCG and BLMK CCG.

View here: BHLMC Guide to Practice Mergers June 2022