When Leadership and Management Support can help
Our Leadership and Management Support Service is designed to support partnerships and practice leadership teams when challenges arise that feel difficult to resolve alone, or where pressures begin to impact stability, performance, or relationships within the practice.
This service focuses on the practice as a whole, supporting partners and leadership teams to step back, understand what’s happening, and work constructively towards resolution. It is particularly valuable where issues are complex, sensitive, or have the potential to escalate if left unaddressed.
Support is collaborative and proportionate. We work with you to understand the context, clarify the issues, and agree a practical plan to move things forward in a way that protects relationships, supports sustainability and maintains focus on patient care.
What we can support with
Leadership and Management Support can be offered across a wide range of situations, including (but not limited to):
- business viability and sustainability
- partnership performance and partnership dispute
- succession planning
- workforce challenges
- premises-related issues
- stakeholder relationships
- regulatory and compliance matters
- contract disputes or contract hand back
- Primary Care Network (PCN) issues
- merger or acquisition activity (intra-practice or involving private providers)
- Local Health Resilience Events (LHRE)
- other complex leadership or organisational challenges
You do not need to wait until issues reach crises point. Many practices engage with the service early to sense-check concerns, explore options, or prevent difficulties escalating.
During periods of particularly high demand, the LMC may, at its discretion, need to temporarily pause support to Primary Care Networks. This ensures that our core focus remains on supporting practices as independent businesses. We rarely need to take this step, but it’s important to be transparent about how we prioritise our capacity during busier periods, so that we can continue to provide timely and effective support where it is most needed.
A collaborative, scalable approach
Support is tailored and scalable, shaped around the needs of your practice and the complexity of the situation.
When requested, the LMC will arrange an initial meeting with the practice leadership to explore the issues and agree the most appropriate next steps. From there, we work with you to develop a proportionate plan, drawing on the right level of support at the right time.
This may include facilitation, mediation, or wider leadership and management support as part of an integrated approach.
Facilitation and Mediation
Where relationships or decision-making have become strained, the LMC can provide facilitation as either a standalone package of support or as part of wider leadership and management input.
Facilitation focuses on:
- improving communication
- supporting collaborative dialogue
- helping teams work through difficult issues together
- rebuilding shared understanding and trust
In our experience facilitation is often the most effective first step, and is what we would usually recommend initially.
In some circumstances, where issues cannot be resolved through facilitation alone, the service can escalate to formal mediation where appropriate. Mediation sits one step below legal action and offers a structured, supported way to address conflict while avoiding unnecessary escalation.
How to access Leadership and Management Support
If you are part of a practice partnership or leadership team working in Devon and would like to access our Leadership and Management Support Service, please ensure you are logged in as a Devon LMC member and use the link at the bottom of the page. This will take you to the Leadership and Management Support page within our Members Area, where you’ll find the Service Enquiry Form.
Once we receive your enquiry, a member of the LMC team will be in touch within five working days to arrange an initial, confidential conversation. This gives us the opportunity to understand your situation and agree the most appropriate support for your practice. If your request is urgent, you can indicate this on the form and we will aim to make contact within 48 hours.
Our approach
This service reflects our belief that strong leadership, healthy relationships and good governance are central to sustainable General Practice.
By working alongside practices in a thoughtful, proportionate and values-led way, we aim to help leadership teams navigate complexity, strengthen resilience and move forward with clarity and confidence.
Access Leadership and Management Support through Devon LMC