Client need

Greenwich PCT was awarded Teaching PCT status in 2003 in line with the Government’s aim for each sector to have one Teaching PCT performing a leadership role in education and learning in primary care, to strengthen the contribution that Primary Care Trusts make to this agenda. The challenge was to strategically engage all stakeholders and to establish a mechanism to ensure the benefits could be shared across the sector and would have a positive impact on learning and service delivery.

Our approach

In order to achieve this we had to encompass all Primary Care Trusts, South East London Workforce Development Confederation, South East London Strategic Health Authority, academic partners (HEIs – University of Greenwich, Kings College University, South Bank University, Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine, and the London GP Deanery).

We specifically focused on:

• Identifying key stakeholders across all of the above organisations to gain their buy-in to establishing a Learning Alliance for South East London
• Developing the format of operating method for the newly formed Learning Alliance
• Working collaboratively as a team to identify opportunities for shared education, training and research across the sector and to progress projects
• Developing methodologies to support service and role redesign projects, led by practitioners, enabling clinicians to come forward with pragmatic ideas for improving service delivery and training
• Showcasing projects and initiatives through networking events, publicising the strength of partnership and sharing learning
• Applying Learning Alliance methodology to wrap support around the clinicians enabling success. Included giving support in project management, access to financial and expert resources as well as exposure in the sector through the Learning Alliance network.

The results

The Learning Alliance is now well established and respected across the sector. It has enabled a number of projects to be developed and tested in local areas, needing minimal financial investment.

Projects that have demonstrated sustainable and achievable improvements so far include:

• Tackling Obesity in Primary Care – 63% reduction in prescribing costs of anti-obesity drugs whilst patients achieving greater weight loss
• Inclusion of children with complex medical needs – New roles created, career pathways for nurses created, an inclusive child centred approach which fully involves parents/carers is now embedded.

The results of the projects demonstrate that this methodology can both enable and accelerate people’s ability to put policy into practice, and show that some of the projects could be a very powerful force for change, not just in their discrete area but by transferring the learning into different situations.