Successful Primary Care At Scale Working – Your Why
In Part 1 of this short series of articles, we considered basic elements that must be in place to ensure successful collaboration or at scale working in GP Practices. I suggested you tried to answer some basic questions for yourself.
In this article, I look in more detail at the first of those elements, Your Why.
As a reminder, Your Why asks you about your reasons for wanting to create an at scale entity. Why you and your colleagues first decided to create an at scale entity. And why you chose the form you did.
It is vital for any form of collaboration, if it is to be successful, that all those involved in forming the entity share a common vision. There’s clearly no point you spending lots of time and effort creating something not all of you have agreed on. It’s vital you share any concerns openly, discuss areas of difference and agree a single view to take forward. If you don’t do this simply defers failure – make sure you all agree on what you are trying to create, record that agreement and then test it out on each other.
Examples of failed collaborations have as a root cause. Often failed shared endeavours have not been successful because the parties have not agreed, have not realised they disagree and/or don’t actually know why they are seeking to collaborate in the first place. Being clear about why you want to create an at scale entity is the most important step in your journey.
This is the essence of “your why”.
If you are not all clear about “your why”, you will reach a point when you realise that you have differing expectations and have invested significant of time and resource only to realise you differ. Not at all what you want.
So, make sure you explore this issue fully. And use the experience of others as a guide. Those who were successful and those who were not. Good learning can be gained from both. Make sure you capture your discussions and everyone has a chance to disagree or to vary what was discussed. But do that before you start planning the at scale entity. Don’t wait until you have started or worse, you are in the middle of planning the delivery. Have as much robust debate as you need but do it upfront, at the start.
And get yourself some clear outcomes to measure success. Ideally, link them to your project plan and ideally, they will be SMART outcomes (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Defined). And do document and agree those too. Being clear and reaching agreement about the aims and objectives of the at scale entity is vital.
To help GP Practices understand where they are now and to help plan for future collaboration, we have developed the At Scale Readiness Assessment. You can use this free, easy-to-use tool to test your readiness to move forward. Quick to use, you will receive a PDF assessment based on your responses. And an opportunity to talk over your assessment with one of our At Scale advisors. Try it now at https://at-scale.co.uk/tools-and-resources/at-scale-readiness/
Engaging in meaningful dialogue will help generate mutual understanding. Many projects fail to engage everyone and then discover issues and potential difficulties later in their project. Commissioner engagement is also essential to help you understand the change processes and systems. As the NHS landscape changes, commissioners are well placed to offer support and advice including timescales for decision-making. The latest funding announcement will likely have some deliverables attached so make sure you know what they are and what they mean.
The next article will deal with Your What in more detail. This will aim to demystify what makes for successful at scale working. Try out the At Scale Readiness Assessment while you wait.