RCGP Leadership Programme

The Royal College of General Practitioners recently invited some fifty organisations to tender to design and deliver their national leadership programme. ODPN formed a collaboration with the Peninsular Medical School and the University of Exeter Centre for Leadership Studies to tender, and was successful in being awarded the contract, against stiff competition from a large field that included the Kings Fund.

We believe this will be of interest and benefit to Network members, both directly and indirectly, largely because of the potential for GPs to prompt changes in the NHS in a way that no other group is able.

Potential

GPs are almost unique in having the credibility with the pubic and the breadth of clinical knowledge to be able to challenge service design, and advocate and support the changes that are needed if the NHS is to be effective and affordable. The fact that currently they are not realising this potential leads us to believe that the programme must be a transformational experience, that engenders confidence, competence and active enthusiasm for being major players in these changes.

The role of the GP is itself changing as a result of changes to the nature of their clinical work (moving from the biographical to the biomedical), the rise in salaried practitioners, with practices moving from partnerships to multi-provider unit franchises, and the challenges of interdisciplinary cluster commissioning. Involvement in this leadership programme will enable us to keep abreast of these changes, and of the impact they will have on other professions and services, and perhaps to influence them.

Programme

The programme aims to develop participants’ ability to:

  • lead their own practice
  • engage effectively with issues and key players in the fast changing health care environment, at local and national levels
  • work with the College to re-engender a vision and self-belief within the profession
  • develop leadership in others.

Shape: The programme offers a balance of intensive ‘class room’ work, tutorial support and on-line study and reflection that can be timed to meet personal needs. Over a twelve-month period participants will be required to engage in four residential weekends, three further tutorial days and an average of five hours of study and reflection per week.

Content: It is in three phases, each introduced by a residential weekend and then continued with a mixture of ‘close learning’ (on line study, reflection and coaching) and tutorial support, and closed with a one-day meeting of the tutorial groups. The three phases are:

  • Managing myself, my team, my organisation.
  • Leadership in the profession
  • Achieving change in the health care system.
At the end of the programme a concluding residential weekend explores participants’ future leadership roles.
Running as themes through these phases will be the five different mindsets of a leader .

ODPN member involvement

There are a number of ways in which members can become involved if you would like to.

  1. We are looking for a number of mentors and also for some ‘shadowees’. This would give you an opportunity to challenge the perception held by GPs of senior managers in primary, acute and mental health care. We anticipate this relationship being mutually rewarding and hope that mentors will want to stay involved with their mentee well beyond the 12 months of the programme, extend to them some of their own network of contacts, and thus have a major impact on their effectiveness in the medium term.
  2. One of the residential weekends will involve a simulation of a multi agency set of contract negotiations over a six month period and we will be looking for material to include in the briefing papers for each of the roles and for experts who inhabit those roles day to day to be available during the weekend as a resource for participants. We envisage this Friday/Saturday weekend being frenetic but exciting.
  3. We hope you will want to identify GPs whose enhanced leadership skills would benefit your local health economy and encourage them to consider applying for the programme.

Interest

We will keep all members informed of progress on the programme but if you would like to express an interest in any of the possibilities listed above then please do contact either Gordon Best or Valerie Iles in the usual way. We will be delighted to involve you.

http://www.rcgp.org.uk/default.aspx?page=3469
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