Supporting GP Practice Transformation

Brookside General Practice, Reading

Context and Requirement

Tricordant worked with the Partners and leadership team of Brookside General Practice, which has a list size of 31,000 patients, to support their leadership transition to a new Partnership portfolio model and a new service model based around multi-disciplinary Patient Health Teams.  This involved each GP Partner leading a key portfolio for the practice and managing a multi-disciplinary team looking after 4,500 patients.  Partners had varying levels of leadership and management experience. Therefore, a bespoke intervention was required that could be tailored to individuals’ needs whilst also working together to build a cohesive team and shared sense of leadership across all the Partners and senior Practice Managers.

What we did

Following a discovery phase, a series of face-to-face sessions were developed covering 4 key themes:

• Working on the Business
• Developing Teams
• Managing Performance
• Establishing Integrating Mechanisms

The intervention worked at three levels: self, team and business. Each session involved a pre-work activity to introduce the leadership topic, which was then explored in more detail at the in-person session, along with practical exercises to ground the theory in participants’ day-to-day reality.  Individuals were also able to draw on personal strengths profile data and work on their individual development through one-to-one coaching sessions.

The outcome

The Practice has successfully transitioned to the new shared leadership and service models and recently won the HSJ Digital Awards 2024: Improving Primary Care Through Digital, combining digital transformation with the new service model.

View of the Practice Senior Partner

“We had a leadership model where many of the partners were not involved in the running of the practice and this was becoming unsustainable and risky, with a single point of failure around a few key individuals.    So we wanted to widen the involvement of partners in the running and leadership of the practice. 

But this represented a significant change and therefore challenge at this time of great demand in primary care.  Against this background we approached Tricordant to work with us in growing the organizational and leadership skills, attitudes and awareness to help us to take on these new roles.  We were somewhat apprehensive about the challenges this change represented. 

What was unexpected was how enjoyable, energising and liberating the whole process has been.  Instead of sitting around in doom and gloom about the NHS, it feels like we have been getting in shape to meet the challenges.  Once we had made the commitment to change, we began to find a renewed sense of purpose in our work, and more ownership and agency over the problems. Best of all it brought fun and laughter back into our work.  The process has brought us together and injected life and fun back into the whole practice whilst enabling us to face difficult issues.

This is a time when there are unprecedented challenges facing the NHS and a lot of apprehension and negativity especially in primary care.  In contrast, the mood within our partnership and practice is really good and it feels as if we are in a really strong position going forward.   At times the difficulties can seem insurmountable.   But seeing the energy, creativity and purposefulness to meet these challenges spreading through the practice gives me a real buzz and great confidence looking forward.  I can’t wait to see what fruits emerge from this reinvigorated organisation of fabulous people.”

Dr Matt Shaw (Senior Partner)

Download