Personal and practice development plans in primary care in Wales

Abstract

As part of the move towards a primary care-led NHS in the UK, a programme enabling general practices to identify and meet organisational development needs is under way in Wales. Personal and Practice Development Plans (PPDPs) are seen as a way of planning the integration of organisational development in general practice with the personal educational needs of multiprofessional primary health care team members. Given the current UK policy emphasis on continuing professional development and collaboration in primary care, PPDPs could be an appropriate way of facilitating such change. Based on a feasibility study in five Welsh Health Authorities, this paper describes the model used and the evolutionary process of implementing general practicebased PPDPs. It is one of the first projects of its kind. Reporting on an early stage, we have found planned timescales to be unrealistic and a degree of mismatch in expectations of process and outcomes among some key stakeholders which has led to some amendments of the model. Early feedback of potential problems has enabled key stakeholders to share lessons learned and ways of resolving initial difficulties have been found. It is likely that adaptation of the framework model at practice level will shape process and outcomes, which will be described in a subsequent paper. This paper addresses the complex reality of getting (government) policy into (general) practice.