Robert Varnam almost needs no introduction. He is a GP in Manchester and Head of General Practice Development at NHS England. He will be known to most people in general practice for his work around the national Time for Care Programme. In his second visit to the General Practice Podcast he talks to Ben about the development of Primary Care Networks and how the learning needs of PCN clinical leaders might be identified and met.

Show Notes

Robert describes the recent changes to his role – focussing on improvement (58secs)

The introduction of Primary Care Networks (1min 54secs)

Variations in the progress of PCNs (3mins 28secs)

How delivering “improvement” to general practice is impacted by PCNs (4mins 44secs)

Establishing the PCN – a collaborative opportunity (6mins 54secs)

Making the best use of the development resources available (8mins 32secs)

Networks using expert facilitation to support development (10mins 24secs)

Developing the PCN clinical directors – a collective approach to leadership (12mins 40secs)

The value of investing in leaders (14mins 30secs)

A network of networks (15mins 04secs)

Establishing the learning needs of clinical directors (15mins 44secs)

Working with peers (17mins 29secs)

Practical resources for networks (18mins 57secs)

Contacting Robert (20mins 05secs)

The website Source4Networks can be found here

Robert can be contacted directly at [email protected]

The first podcast we ran with Robert can be accessed here