Team members need to be clear about what activities need to be undertaken and who is responsible for completing them, so that nothing slips through the gaps. Clear roles and responsibilities among team members A small number of meaningful objectivesĪ set of compelling objectives that your team members share responsibility – and accountability – for achieving, helps to create a sense of shared purpose, trust and collective achievement. Professor Michael West’s research on team-based working in health care suggests that care outcomes, innovation and staff retention can all be enhanced, and staff sickness, absence, stress and injury reduced, by making sure the following three features are present in your teams.

Some of the sections will be more relevant to you than others, but if you are a GP, practice manager or other professional working in primary care, or you are supporting practices, we hope you can use this guide to help you think how you will go about creating and sustaining effective teams within general practice. You will already be doing some of the things we talk about, and some of what we’ve included may seem obvious. The need for collaboration and communication underpins much of the guide and we provide further reading and case studies to support each section. This guide brings together insights from our research, policy analysis and leadership practice. The King’s Fund has a long history of supporting and developing teams working in across health and care systems, and more recently we have been working with general practices and primary care networks as they develop team-based models of care. Making these teams function effectively is a complex task.

Practices are coming together at scale in primary care networks and new roles are being introduced, creating multidisciplinary and multi-agency teams. Teamworking is fundamental to the future of general practice.

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