In most primary care practices, it's fairly standard procedure for individual partners to take lead responsibility for different parts of the healthcare services they provide.
This might be because GPs have experience in specific areas, such as minor surgery or cancer care provision, have a wider related role within the local area through being part of the Primary Care Network or Integrated Care Board, or simply have an interest that they want to develop.
However, it’s rarely the case that there is a named partner with overall responsibility for managing the business and financial side of the practice’s operations, in the same way that a professional services firm will have a managing partner or director.
While the focus of any GP practice is obviously on the delivery of healthcare, the fact remains that it is also a business, and the performance of that business is the basis on which both these health services are provided and the partners draw their incomes.
Some practices choose to devolve this responsibility to the practice manager, and that may sometimes be a successful arrangement, while collegiate decision-making involving all partners is common.
But in our experience, the greater degree of involvement there is at partner level with a practice’s finances, the more efficiently its finances can be run.
And if it’s not something that’s been considered in your practice, we would very much recommend that you at least investigate how it might work for you.
The process should start with a discussion at one of your regular partner meetings to see who might be interested in taking on the role, what it might entail, how regularly it might be passed on to a new incumbent and what the partners’ financial priorities are for service provision, income generation and remuneration.
Taking on this role will of course require a time commitment from the chosen partner which needs to be factored in to the overall amount of time they have available for their other duties, some of which may need to be covered by colleagues.
But having someone in this position with the capacity to make swift, informed decisions based on agreed criteria, and with insight into both the operational and clinical aspects of the practice’s work should make the management of its finances much more efficient.
Further benefits could be derived from using accounting software systems which provide detailed management information that the business lead and their professional advisors can use to carry out cashflow and resource planning exercises on a quarterly basis, particularly with the impending introduction of Making Tax Digital in mind.
Not only will this provide greater certainty that your practice has everything in place it needs to deliver the services its community requires, but it will also help identify any unexpectedly large tax bills that might be coming partners’ ways as a result of the extra profits that many practices have made over the last couple of years due to the additional service provision that the pandemic required.
Steps can then be taken to manage any financial issues arising in plenty of time, rather than having to deal with them hurriedly when they appear out of the blue.
Within primary care, the more patient data you have and the more clinical expertise you have to apply to it, the more likely is it that you’ll get better decisions and outcomes.
The same principle applies to management information and strategic business decisions, and the more direct involvement that partners have with work, the better the outcomes will be all round.