An innovative 10-day leadership programme for emerging primary care leaders in medicine, jointly organised by the Cambridge Judge Business School and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG has launched this weekend.

The Primary Care Innovation Academy Programme, which provides management and leadership training for emerging leaders in General Practice (GP) medicine, will be attended by 33 delegates, mostly clinical directors of newly established Primary Care Networks.

Primary care networks (PCNs) are based on GP registered lists and serve communities of 30,000 to 50,000 people, and the NHS long-term plan has identified these PCNs as critical enablers of innovation.

The programme’s opening sessions in Cambridge focus on system challenges, learning from the legal sector, and a negotiations lab. This is then followed by nine day-long sessions over the course of the next year to support these clinical directors. An online app has been developed to provide a safe space for engagement and learning throughout the year.

“Strengthening primary care and its innovation potential is key to help the NHS weather the many challenges of the future, This programme is designed to develop a team of future GP leaders who will be the local voice of general practice and engage pro-actively in the development of the local health system around their practices.” says Professor Stefan Scholtes, Academic Programme Director of the Primary Care Innovation Academy Programme and Dennis Gillings Professor of Health Management at Cambridge Judge. “One key to this will be for GP practices to work together in new ways to develop new service offerings and link more closely with their communities.”

The programme’s Medical Director, Dr Mark Sanderson of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), part of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, said:

“Preparing our local Primary Care Networks to operate effectively in this new system is of upmost importance to the CCG. We are the first CCG in the country to have prioritised helping our new Clinical Directors and key colleagues in this way – delivering a course in collaboration with the world renowned Judge Business School to develop key skills that will help revolutionise the way Primary Care services are delivered locally.”

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG is responsible for buying NHS services in the local area. They have a budget of £1.3 billion to deliver healthcare services to 980,000 people across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. This includes funding for Primary Care Networks as well as hospitals, GP services, pharmacies, mental health services and NHS 111.

The programme is organised by the Executive Education division of Cambridge Judge Business School, and sessions will be delivered by core faculty from Cambridge Judge’s MBA programme.

Courtesy of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group