What is the challenge your project is going to address and how does it connect to the theme of 'How can improvement be used to reduce delays accessing health and care services'?

Workforce readiness is a major issue within Primary Care and with more than 90% of a patient’s direct experience of the NHS through primary care and their GP practices it is vital appointments are available when needed.

This project will enable the Training Hub to dedicate resource into investigating the thriving aspects of Primary Care where innovation and improvement are actively increasing access to services. This needs a local approach that speaks directly to those who are affected, we aim to simplify solutions that are meaningful to the workforce to enable quick adoption and support investment of education. Appreciative Inquiry experts will be key to this by increasing capability and capacity to have the best conversations.

We aim to cut through the corporate jargon by identifying assets that will relate to the workforce. Coaching skills will also play an integral part in the success of this project.

What does your project aim to achieve?

Objectives that align with the Q Principles – we aim to achieve

How will the project be delivered?

The delivery of the project will be held by a centrally by a programme manager who will coordinate and co design the right approach. Key to the project will be experts in appreciative inquiry that we will bring on board to work with each training hub locality lead. There are 6 localities within Cheshire and Merseyside Primary Care Training Hub, each requiring a unique approach. The locality leads have worked closely with primary care for a number of years and have developed a keen sense of what works.

There will be a robust evaluation process in place to support this work moving forward. Although the biggest risk here is sustainability of the project, by building capabilities through training – how to have best conversations and adopt new ideas, we should mitigate against this. It will also be important to have a method of connecting people digitally throughout this project.

How is your project going to share learning?

Learning will be shared continuously throughout this project. We will create a simple method of theming up solutions already working well within primary care discovered through appreciative inquiry. Themes will be designed by the right people that relate to what they are trying to achieve.

Story telling and case studies will play a part of the learning here but we will be encouraging innovative ways of sharing practice such as shadowing, site visits and community networking which will also include the wider system not just primary care.

Details will be shared nationally at the end of the project showcasing what we discovered, what was adopted and impact on patient waits.

We will be also exploring maturity of workforce plans and will develop a matrix to support thinking and best practice that can be easily used by developing PCNs and Practices.