Resources

Online resources and guidance on modern general practice.

Primary care improvement community

The primary care improvement community has over 17,000 members and growing. It is a community for all who work in and around general practice and primary care across England, and are involved in facilitating innovation, improvement and transformation. This spreads good ideas more quickly, helping to accelerate local change and support change leaders in sustaining progress and their own resilience.

To join the community, please sign up to: Connect – our online space on FutureNHS (login required).

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Digital primary care community

The Digital Primary Care FutureNHS site (requires login) provides a platform for NHS colleagues working within digital primary care to come together and share experiences, learning and resources. Joining the network gives you access to an online hub of resources, guidance and case studies to support digital transformation of primary care services. With more than 6,000 members it also provides a great opportunity to share issues, questions and solutions with colleagues through online discussions.

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How to improve care navigation in general practice

Effective care navigation is a key part of a modern general practice model. This guide is for general practice teams who are seeking to improve care navigation and triage processes in their organisation.

This guidance is based on learning from various practices and primary care networks (PCNs) across the country on how to approach improvements to your care navigation process.

Read or download this guide

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National care navigation training for general practice staff

The Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care, committed to training 6,500 general practice staff (one person from every practice in the country) in care navigation skills. Practice and PCN managers can nominate one member of staff, ideally reception staff and care navigators involved in managing patient requests, to complete the virtual care navigation training. It’s anticipated that this will be a popular programme and that spaces will fill up quickly.

On completion, individuals will be confident to communicate effectively with patients and be able to signpost to the most relevant team member or local services depending on patient needs. An advanced training offer will be available at a later date for those with experience of care navigation who can support and embed it into practices and networks for sustainability and standardisation. If you have any questions or would like more information, visit the Care navigation training online space on FutureNHS (login required).

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How to align capacity with demand in general practice

This guide is for general practice teams who are seeking to better understand, manage and align demand and capacity in their practice.

Building data collection and data analysis capabilities provides practices with the skills to be able to understand demand and capacity, which in turn supports practices to tackle many different, but often inter-connected challenges for example:

  • peak demand on the phone
  • running out of appointments during the day
  • overwhelming demand on GP appointments
  • a rising ‘queue’ of non-urgent appointments

Read or download this guide

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Demand and capacity webinar sessions for general practices and primary care networks

This guidance is for practice managers, PCNs, integrated care systems (ICSs), GP federations and anyone who is looking for guidance for improving general practice (GP) websites.

There are multiple benefits to creating a highly accessible and usable GP website. It will:

  • Improve patient satisfaction and experience of using the GP practice, making it more likely they will return and use digital tools.
  • Ensure patients are signposted to the correct place for their needs, reducing wasted patient and practice time.
  • Reduce the risk of adding digital inequalities to existing health inequalities.
  • Remove access barriers for patients with disabilities and make your website legally compliant.
  • Create a place where patients can effectively self-serve, thereby:
  • reducing the burden on receptionists and clinical staff
  • empowering patients to manage their health and care.
  • Creating highly usable and accessible GP websites for patients
  • Read our research in full on the FutureNHS platform (login required).

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Creating highly usable and accessible GP websites for patients

This guidance is for practice managers, primary care networks (PCNs), integrated care systems (ICSs), GP federations and anyone who is looking for guidance for improving general practice (GP) websites.

There are multiple benefits to creating a highly accessible and usable GP website. It will:

  • improve patient satisfaction and experience of using the GP practice, making it more likely they will return and use digital tools
  • ensure patients are signposted to the correct place for their needs, reducing wasted patient and practice time
  • reduce the risk of adding digital inequalities to existing health inequalities
  • remove access barriers for patients with disabilities and make your website legally compliant
  • create a place where patients can effectively self-serve, thereby:
    • reducing the burden on receptionists and clinical staff
    • empowering patients to manage their health and care
  • creating highly usable and accessible GP websites for patients

Read our research in full on the FutureNHS platform (requires a login)

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GP website benchmarking and improvement tool

The GP website benchmarking and improvement tool has been developed to support integrated care systems (ICSs), primary care networks (PCNs) and general practice teams to audit the usability of key patient web journeys. The tool provides a deeper understanding as to whether a GP website meets a high standard of usability along with contractual requirements laid out in the GS contracts and other requirements of practices.

You can use the tool to:

  • create a checklist of improvements needed.
  • identify which elements for improvement are usually the responsibility of the website supplier or the practice.
  • audit a site before and after usability changes are made to measure improvements.
  • compare the usability of two or more sites.

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How to improve telephone journeys in general practice

High quality, effective telephone and online journeys are key enablers of modern general practice. They should integrate well with and support care navigation and administrative processes within a practice or primary care network (PCN).

This guidance helps practices and PCNs choose, purchase and optimise the use of advanced cloud-based telephony.

Read or download this guide.

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How to improve care related processes in general practice

Well designed and integrated care related processes can bring significant time savings for practices and improve patient experiences.

This guidance offers information on three important care-related activities (workload that pertains to a patient but does not directly involve them):

  • prescription management
  • long-term condition recalls
  • new patient registration

In addition, it also offers improvement approaches which can be applied to a wider range of tasks and processes in general practice.

Read or download this guide.

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10 top tips for supporting digital inclusion in general practice

This guide, Supporting digital inclusion in general practice: 10 top tips, is for healthcare staff in general practices, primary care networks (PCNs), integrated care systems (ICSs) and anyone who is seeking to improve digital inclusion in general practice, particularly among under-served and marginalised communities. It has been produced in partnership with the Good Things Foundation, a digital inclusion charity and draws on examples of good practice in 30 primary care and community-based organisations.

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Inclusive access routes to general practice – support for surgery teams

This tested toolkit of materials (fully updated in April 2023) is to help practice teams explain to patients the 3 ways they can get in touch to get the care they need – by phone, in person or using an online form on the practice’s website (sometimes referred to as online consultation requests). It aims to build patient understanding of using digital routes and confidence in using them and in how their practice will respond.

General Practice Access Routes is free to download (login required). It includes:

  • posters, counter cards, leaflets for reception areas
  • useful tips, help and links from practices.

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Administrative triage using digital tools in general practice

The administrative triage using digital tools in general practice eLearning module  has been designed to support general practice administrative staff to design their practice workflow in sorting, signposting and delivering administrative triage with the aim of supporting an inclusive approach to managing demand and workload.

Consisting of nine modules, it has been developed in collaboration with the Practice Managers Association.

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Using online consultations in primary care – implementation toolkit

The online consultations implementation toolkit has been developed to support practices, clinicians, commissioners and PCNs with the successful adoption of online consultation systems and the seamless integration of these alongside face-to-face and other services.

There is both a full version of the toolkit for those who are leading these projects and a shortened version, particularly aimed at GPs and other practice staff. The toolkit is an interactive and provides a range of ideas and options for different professionals, including clinicians, at different points in their implementation journey. As a result, those using the toolkit are encouraged to jump through to the sections most relevant to their role or organisation.

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Change Model

The Change Model is a framework for any project or programme that is seeking to achieve transformational, sustainable change.

The model, provides a useful organising framework for sustainable change and transformation that delivers real benefits for patients and the public. It was created to support health and care teams and organisations to adopt a shared approach to leading change and transformation.

Change Model 2017; spread and adoption, improvement tools, project and performance management, measurement, system drivers, motivate and mobilise, leadership by all

The model has eight components, all of which should be considered when implementing change. The components act as a guide to ensure all elements of change are considered and implemented effectively, creating an environment where change programmes deliver transformational, sustainable change.

The Change Model was developed with hundreds of senior leaders, clinicians, commissioners, providers and improvement activists who want to get involved in building energy for change across health and care by adopting a systematic and sustainable approach to improving quality of care.

We have recently refreshed and enhanced the model to include a PDF guide and a series of supporting diagnostic tools to use in your work, including an action planning template and a key questions template for each component of the guide:

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Getting started series guides

The ‘Getting Started’ series is designed to help you think through how you are going to approach any improvement you want to make in practice. You can access these resources on Connect – our online space on Future NHS (login required).

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Universal Offer information and resources

A series of webinars, information, and resources on specific improvement topics and approaches designed for those working in practices and networks to tackle local challenges is available on Connect – our online space on Future NHS (login required).

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Modern general practice webinars

A series of webinars to support the implementation of modern general practice is available on Connect – our online space on Future NHS (login required).

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