Primary care networks: navigating new organisational forms.

National Health Service England (NHSE) instigated Primary Care Networks (PCNs) as a collaboration of general practices working together at scale to improve population health in the local community. The aim of the study was to capture general practitioner PCN leaders' perceptions of the opportunities and pitfalls of PCNs, as well as points of learning, during their inception and development, in order to guide the future development of PCN form and function. The study, carried out in primary care, took a qualitative design. Nine PCN general practitioner leaders were interviewed in depth to gather their views and experiences of PCNs. We also collated 31 free-text survey responses pertaining to how participants perceived the purpose of PCNs. The key themes were - defining purpose and managing ambiguity; bureaucracy vs. local autonomy; relational working; facilitative leadership. The need for purpose setting to remain adaptive was seen as crucial in avoiding the constraints of too rigid a structure in order to retain local ownership, whilst remaining focussed around meeting complex population needs and reducing variation. Participants reported navigating their way through striking a balance between the 'top down' mandate and recognising local need. Of importance to the success of PCNs was the necessity of effective relational working and facilitative leadership CONCLUSION: Whilst the desire to be proactive and collaborative was emphasised by the PCN leaders, the importance of distributed leadership and time given to building trust and effective working relationships within new organisational forms cannot be underestimated. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2021, The Authors.]