Supporting sustainable general practice in the South West

The NHS England South (South West) Supporting Sustainable General Practice initiative is aimed at helping General Practices to considering their sustainability status and to explore options for responding to the current challenges facing General Practice and the wider Primary Care environment. If your Practice is within any of the following Clinical Commissioning Groups, the support on offer may be able to help you on a path to sustainability and transformation:

  • South Gloucestershire CCG
  • North Somerset CCG
  • Bristol CCG
  • Somerset CCG
  • South Devon and Torbay CCG
  • NEW Devon CCG
  • Kernow CCG

The initiative has been developed as a result of dedicated NHS England funding for the South West and is led by a dedicated project manager.

The Supporting Sustainable General Practice initiative aims to fulfil NHS England’s ambition to support innovative and improved models of primary care, by designing a process which can take Practices on a journey from the provision of tools to enable to them to identify viability and sustainability, to helping them explore aims and objectives, potential design solutions and transform into sustainable organisational forms

What’s on offer?

For South West General Practices, NHS England has developed a range of support mechanisms and resources aimed at the initiating and supporting the life cycle of business change, as follows:

  • Assessment of General Practices’ sustainability, using the General Practice ‘Health-Check’ Tool
  • Presentation and exploration of potential options for business change
  • Guided facilitation of discussion within or between General Practices to help consideration of change options and ways forward
  • Facilitation of communication between General Practices to initiate collaboration and exploration of partnership initiatives
  • Support and guidance for planning business change
  • Support and guidance for realising plans and objectives, including provision of project management expertise
  • Guided facilitation of discussion between change initiative partnerships to review and consider current outcomes, successes and lessons learnt
  • Provision of a range of information resources, including guides to collaboration, networks and federations, mergers and managing projects.
  • Access to General Practice ‘early adopter’ innovation models across the South West

NHS England has developed these resources and approaches in collaboration with a range of subject matter experts, including:

  • Clinical commissioning groups
  • Local medical committees
  • General practitioner partners
  • General practice managers and business managers
  • Regional pharmacy personnel

NHS England’s GP Sustainability and Transformation initiative is part of the NHS England South (South West) Primary Care Transformation Programme. Heads of Primary Care are Marina Muirhead (BNSSSG) and Julia Cory (DCIOS).

Marina Muirhead can be contacted on 0113 8253 605 or 07525 495691 or by email at marinamuirhead@nhs.net. Julia Cory can be contacted on 0113 8248 967 or 07900 715328 or by email at julia.cory@nhs.net

Downloadable resources