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Why does the world need another network?

This is a pertinent question as NHS Networks prepares to launch a new network next week billed as the Practice Based Commissioning Connection.

The choice of name is deliberate, because this isn't another rival for the dubious accolade of loudest voice in PBC but an attempt to strike a note of harmony, a bid to bring together some of the existing networks hosted by a range of organisations and representing just as wide a range of stakeholder interests.

For PBC to work, it has to succeed in creating genuine collaboration between clinicians, practice managers, PCTs (at several levels), policy makers, NHS representative bodies and that other group of stakeholders – who don't always wield as much influence as they might – known as patients.

The role of the Connection is simply to create common ground between the networks already out there. Every one of the stakeholder groups mentioned has some sort of platform but each tends to gravitate to its own kind with clinicians debating with clinicians, commissioners talking to commissioners, and so on.

While this coalescence of self-interest is natural it doesn't do much to advance the wider cause. If PCTs and clinicians are not mutually engaged in PBC, it won't happen. And if patients don't have a voice then they will simply have PBC done to them.

The Department of Health is supporting this initiative in recognition that those already showing good practice need to join up with others, that PBC is working but not perhaps as hard as it should be, and that not all of the wiring is in place.

So the reason we need another network is to widen the dialogue and make it more inclusive. PBC Connection will start as a communication network: it will audit and map the available resources, see what networks are out there and what else people need.

The network's launch, on 1 March, will coincide with the start of work of the PBC improvement team, which is touring the country to evaluate local initiatives and look for evidence of good practice. However useful these visits and the intelligence they gather, this is just the beginning of a longer process. Improvement is a journey not a destination.

To register for the PBC Connection contact Krishna Patel by email on krishna.patel@networks.nhs.uk and watch out for developments on the site during March.

The next New@Networks will be sent out on 5 March

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