Practice Managers come in all shapes and sizes. With great variation in experience and skills, it’s no coincidence that the best are the ones who are great leaders as well as managers.
NHSE say “Practice managers are a vital resource” and have allocated £6million to PM development with reportedly still much of this unspent. Maybe it’s because there’s not a common view on how to do it, or it’s not seen as a priority.
NHSE feel it will come from local networks and peer support, but that won’t develop PM’s. If we want to truly do this, it needs an emphasis on the broad skills of management and leadership. It must be more than systems, processes and the ways of working specific to practice management.
It needs PM groups to work together to shape this so it’s effective.
Funding amounts to less than £800 per practice, so it needs to be spent at scale. It needs to benefit all levels of PM and real development will only come from a program not a single event.
A vital part of this must also be a message to GP Partners. It’s essential they give their PM autonomy to lead and manage.
PM’s must take the lead to make this happen and make it right. Otherwise we may be given something ill-fitting for what we need.
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