Increasing Resilience by Sharing Across a Network
Although many practices have an implicit understanding of the risks to their resilience, few have in place a formal strategy.
Prioritising Risk
Resilience within the context of a practice is the ability to withstand any adverse events which may or may not have been identified under a practice’s risk register. The work that Xytal has been doing with both individual practices and Primary Care Networks has provided opportunity for consideration of the real benefits of working within a Primary Care Network. We provide the following case study as a pragmatic example of how skilled facilitation of change can lead to the cultivation of resilience within practice management.
Case Study
A group of practice managers came together and realised that one key risk they all shared was the sudden incapacitation of key individuals – namely themselves!
Collectively they created a list of all the tasks the practice manager can reasonably (and unreasonably) be expected to perform. It was quite a long list.
They then undertook a prioritisation process to understand which of the tasks listed were urgent, and which were important. If a task fulfilled the criteria for both of these categories, then a practice would need urgent cover to maintain its service in the event of an incapacitation.
The practice managers then decided that in the event of their own sudden incapacitation, one of the remaining members of the group would cross cover the affected practice. Spreading risk across more than one organisation has benefits in reducing risk and therefore increasing resilience, however as readers can imagine, this plan led to further discussion amongst the partners surrounding the pros and cons of sharing risk, benefits and trust.
Learning Points
There are real benefits to be gained from exploring the ways in which practices can make successful changes in order to start “working at scale”. We have found that it is essential that aspirations and anxieties are managed by skilled facilitators who can smooth the journey, successful change does not happen by chance.
