More than 50 GP colleagues from across Lanarkshire came together this week for the latest GP Cluster Event, providing an opportunity to share learning, make connections and explore improvement work taking place across primary care.
Held twice a year, the events bring together colleagues from Lanarkshire’s 16 GP practice clusters to share experiences and learn more about work that can support improvements across general practice.
The day started with a working lunch hosted by Accurx to give delegates the opportunity to discuss the use of the Accurx system in their practices and hear about future developments.
The main event opened with a cluster support update, followed by key learning from the Cluster Quality Lead (CQL) and Practice Quality Lead (PQL) survey and how feedback is helping to inform ongoing work.
A key part of the day was a session on the primary-secondary care interface, highlighting work across NHS Lanarkshire to support better communication, stronger professional relationships and more co-ordinated care.
Colleagues also heard about leadership and management development opportunities available to CQLs and PQLs through NHS Lanarkshire and national NHS Scotland programmes.
The programme also included an update on the Community Link Worker Programme and an interactive Learning from others session, giving colleagues an opportunity to reflect on existing improvement work, share experiences and consider future GP Cluster improvement activity.
These cluster events, and wider cluster support, are helping to turn conversations into action. By creating space for colleagues to connect, share learning and explore common challenges, the events are strengthening relationships across practices and opening the door to collaborative quality improvement (QI) work at cluster level. A number of clusters are already working on QI initiatives inspired by these events, including:
- One cluster is reviewing their use of lidocaine patches for chronic pain, after viewing a GPST poster at a previous event.
- The Pharmacotherapy Hub is now working closely with another cluster after providing an update of their service at an event.
- A cluster is carrying out QI work around falls – after learning more about the service at a lunchtime QI session (LTQI). These are short, focused sessions to help support change and QI across clusters.
To help support these networking connections, colleagues were able to visit stalls from Accurx, the Local Intelligence Support Team (LIST) from Public Health Scotland, Community Link Workers and view posters created by GPSTs.
Dr Veronica Rainey, Associate Medical Director, South Lanarkshire University Health and Social Care Partnership, said: “Our Cluster events are a valuable opportunity for colleagues to come together, share their experiences and learn from the improvement work taking place across Lanarkshire. By sharing what is working well and building stronger connections across primary care, we can continue to identify opportunities to improve services for our patients.”
Any cluster can request support from the Primary Care Improvement Team (PCIT) for quality improvement projects they would like to explore by emailing LanCQL@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk
