The GP Alliance has started the working at scale project, taking on board views and comments of local practices of what’s important to them.  The Working at Scale project will look at how general practice can collaborate as groups of practices, to manage the demands of a growing and older population, without losing the benefits of small practices.  There are several models for how practices can work together.  We will be working with practices over the next few months to look at formal and informal collaborations for back office functions, clinical services, workforce and quality improvement.

We will work with practices to identify opportunities and ways in which working together can tackle workload and recruitment problems for some practices, support others with delivering more care in the community, bring in more income streams to general practice and help sustain general practice for the future.  Options for work will be developed that can be done across practices to support practice managers and GPs, in the short term, whilst we continue to work with practices on our plan as a GP Alliance for the long term, supporting practices with what’s important to them.