How Does A GP Acquire Trust In A Sea Of Suited Providers?

Trust has to be built on being more than just being able to deliver a building, but a need to understand what matters in the provision of Primary Care facilities to the GP practice and the community.

This article looks at the role of ‘assurance’ or ‘trust’ when it comes to focus on delivering medical property.

 

Setting The Scene

Isaac Watts (hymn writer and theologian from the 18^th century) famously said, “Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.”

When the NHS actually used the resources it had to invest in Primary Health estate development, advisors such as Jerrard Keats & Wolley and third party developers such as Charles Higgins Partnership were often invited to effectively tender to deliver a solution.

The NHS had set out a procedure to be adhered to. This was meant to demonstrate a review of a selection of providers before a decision was made on a preferred provider, ensured ‘value for money’.

However, often a preferred party had been selected from the outset and was fast tracked to the front of the queue. The others invitees made up the numbers and ticked the NHS boxes.

Then there was the GPs making a selection based on there being no relationship with them and a limited understanding of the true depth of the needs of the practice, the project and the wider community that it would grow to be responsible for.

Sometimes, advisors insisted that proposals and detailed thinking on specific sites was required to be presented to a group of GPs where there is no relationship and the grounds for trust and confidence is not even at an embryonic stage.

Any development project of this magnitude needs the GPs to invest time to interview and see if the various parties have a spark of likeminded outcomes. This how a level of trust and mutuality develops, builds momentum and then develop to truly work together?”

 

Providing A Solution

Everything starts with meeting a GP practice face to face.

The key to setting the foundations for a dialogue founded on trust is to understand how the practice works, operates, thinks and the most importantly the vision that they have.

This is a completely different and separate mind-set from being invited to showcase your services, alongside other selected suppliers, each trying to show how good and effective they can be.

A first conversation with Jerrard Keats & Wolley, has to start with a blank sheet of paper and recognition that no two encounters are the same.

From a very early stage, it is clear to see if there is a relationship that can build overtime between a GP practice and ourselves. Is there a spark of playful interaction? Is there some personality that has an interest in what you want?

If one party doesn’t feel comfortable with the other, a successful long-term relationship is hard to imagine, develop and best we step aside. Most of the long term players in the market can deliver a building, it is how they deliver and to what degree they are interested in what you want, not what they want you to want.

Everything has to be centred on the long-term involvement and delivery of a primary care facility. The next step is to look to the management of the new primary care facility, can you get on with them in the future? Ask around.

 

Turning An Approach Around

There are developers and advisors who are very prescriptive about what a GP requires, rather than developing a dialogue to arrive at a proposal driven by various aspirations convictions and practicalities.

Results are achieved when a GP practice understands options and choices to be able to form a full brief that quantifies where they are now, what the future holds and the possibilities that are available.

There has to be the will to trust from a very early stage. This is endorsed by an ability to demonstrate, not just say, how a facilitator can contribute to a better generational future of the practice.

Everything has to be centred on where a surgery needs to be, not why a GP needs to work with someone. Trust is earned when there is consistency between GP and the supplier of words, actions and results.

 

Creating Comfort In Planning

There has to be a sense of ease in working with the team and openness in being able to discuss and plan. Rapport is key.

West Cowes Medical Centre, on the Isle of Wight, is a case in point where having worked with the GPs the medical centre development team of Charles Higgins Partnership actually bought the preferred site before an agreement to lease was signed.

A true example of when a Third Party Developer had built ‘trust’ with the GP practice and was prepared to commit significant money to a scheme with no security. When a GP practice is prepared to commit the time to develop a continual conversation and build a relationship, trust on both sides can develop and ensure a project can be delivered in the face of any challenges that are presented.

Interestingly the final site selection started with a conversation with the GP and a patient who owned an ‘undevelopable’ site. Together we created value for both the surgery, the landowner and the community. Everything for this project started with the question from both GP and provider by asking, “Is this someone I can work with on a long term basis?” It comes down to the willingness to invest time in each other. This was the backbone to the success of the West Cowes Medical Surgery project.

A company such as Jerrard Keats & Wolley recognise that we are in the people business.

Trust is centred on transparency with the end goal of the provision of a quality building to allow the delivery of exemplary primary care service for a community by people who have families in the area, thus being part of the community they work in.

Developing trust is far more important for a GP practice than the merits of a tender type process as to who is the cheapest as the DV and NHS deal with the quantification of money. The focus on a surgery to serve a community to some may be seen as a commodity asset value, but the majority identify as a better opportunity for improved healthcare provision.

In turn, this provides a better space and thus a better environment to retain staff and easier to encourage recruitment as it will be within an environment where people feel content and a less stressful environment for the effective delivery of primary care.

 

Lets Conclude

A shared mindset from the earliest of meetings encourages trust, joint working behaviour ensures consistency.

The provision of new primary care premises is not just reliant on the needs and wants of a surgery but the ability to share objectives, develop strategy, agree agenda and create values from the outset. In short, trust is key.