Leadership in Practice – Details, episodes & analysis

In the first episode of 2026 I explore Practice KPIs with Edward Rigby. It’s an area I’ve always had a great interest as I believe they are quite possibly a managers most valuable information. Used correctly, KPIs improve decision making, keep you in control and reduce conflicts.

Edward Rigby, a Managing Partner at Malpas Surgery a rural dispensing practice in southwest Cheshire, demonstrated he is an expert of this and shared plenty of insights and advice. Edward has over seven years in practice management and is dedicated to improving local health outcomes. He has an MBA and is passionate about quality improvement and regularly shares best practice across primary care through writing, speaking, and teaching.

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers and all leaders in general practice and if you are in this role, you’ll know how complicated and difficult it can be.

In each episode I’ll be discussing a business, management or leadership challenge, and I’ll provide ideas and tools to help you understand how you can be a better leader of your practice.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on
Apple Podcasts. Don’t forget to visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn for more great ideas and advice to help you become a better leader of your practice.

In this episode I chat with Sarah Rhodes, a three-time Practice Manager of the Year. Sarah has achieved something genuinely remarkable. She has not lost a single team member in more than five years.

I was blown away hearing how she has done it, from listening and flexibility to creating a culture where people truly want to stay and grow. Her approach is authentic, inspiring and practical and full of ideas that any practice can learn from and put into action.

Sarah is a Practice Business Manager from Avicenna Medical Practice in Bradford. She has a Masters in Health and Care Management and a long-term passion for staff training and development and this has translated to great results in terms of staff morale and retention. The practice has won several awards, and amongst everything Sarah does there she is also a Finance Director of Bradford Care Alliance for an IGPM Regional Rep.

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers and all leaders in general practice and if you are in this role, you’ll know how complicated and difficult it can be.

In each episode I’ll be discussing a business, management or leadership challenge, and I’ll provide ideas and tools to help you understand how you can be a better leader of your practice.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on
Apple Podcasts. Don’t forget to visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn for more great ideas and advice to help you become a better leader of your practice.

I suspect succession planning and talent management are unfamiliar activities for many in general practice and primary care. Maybe they’re not on your radar, or you’re not sure what they mean or whether they’re relevant to a practice or primary care network. But I’ve found they can often be happening to some degree but without much structure or in a way that maximises what can be achieved.

The reality is that its absolutely something worth doing, whatever the size of your practice or PCN, and can have great benefits in terms of staff engagement, motivation, development and the sustainability and resilience of the organisation.

In this episode Chris Locke returns to discuss succession planning and talent management, and how they can work for you. 

Chris Locke has been working with organisations, both public and private sector for over 30 years supporting the assessment and development of managers, aspiring leaders and C-suite executives. His role and his passion is helping people realise their potential through a range of tools including coaching, psychometrics, training and facilitation.

If you would like to know more you can email him on:

chris@realisingyourpotential.com or sign up for his talent development newsletter at: realisingyourpotential.com/sign-up. 

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on LinkedIn.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.

Primary Care Networks are now an important and established part of the primary care landscape but as Tara Humphrey points out in this episode, with multiple organisations coming together it takes a lot of time, thought, reflection and planning to try and build the relationships.

We can be certain that Primary Care Networks, in one form or another, are here to stay, so I wanted explore the complex relationships between primary care networks and practices. There is possibly no one better to have this conversation with than Tara and together we discussed: 

• The current status of PCNs
• What a really great PCN Practice relationship looks like
• What are the key ingredients 
• What you can do to improve a challenging relationship

We also each give our usual podcast takeaway to help you if you’re a practice or PCN struggling with your relationship.

Tara Humphrey is the Founder and CEO of THC Primary Care, primary care network specialists providing interim Primary Care Network management, PCN facilitation, consultancy, training and resources.

She is also the host of the Business of Healthcare podcast, a prolific blogger and social media contributor and has featured in an impressive number and range of publications, podcasts and webinars. 

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on LinkedIn.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.

If you think you should only speak to your lawyer when something has gone wrong, you might want to think again. 

This episode with Edwina Farrell was a real eye opener. It left me in no doubt that your lawyer is there to prevent things going wrong, and to make it less costly if the worst does happen. 

Keep listening if you’re a Partner in practice, or a Practice Manager taking the lead on governance and legal matters, and you'll hear Edwina share a wealth of knowledge on:

• Partnership agreements to Property 
• Profit share to disrepute 
• And much, much more

We also each give our usual podcast takeaway to help you avoid these legal pitfalls.

Edwina Farrell leads the primary care team at Weightmans and advises GP practices, individual partners, local medical committees and those who work with them. She has a broad experience in the way in which general practice and its finance operates and as such is able to bring a holistic approach to GP partnership business, property and dispute work. She is a medical partnership expert and is widely recognised as a specialist NHS GP advisor. Her work includes partnership formation, retirement, mergers and other contractual arrangements such as partnership contract variations as well as some practice disputes. She has been involved with collaboration projects with health and emergency service providers and is widely known for negotiating robust and 'GP friendly' property transactions especially in connection with landlord and tenant matters. Edwina can be contacted here.

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on LinkedIn.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.

The relationship between the Practice Manager and the Partners is the most important one in the practice.

So much is impacted by this relationship and when it’s positive it benefits everything and everyone, but a negative one can be extremely damaging. It’s a complicated relationship, where the expected hierarchy and the usual dynamics of the employer and employee often don’t work.

In this episode I am joined by Ben Allen a GP Partner and a Sam Fellowes a Practice Manager to explore the workings of this important but complex relationship. Together we discuss:

·         What a good relationship looks like

·         The key factors that create a strong relationship

·         What to do if the relationship isn’t working 

Ben Allen is a GP Partner at Birley Health Centre, a NHS Clinical Entrepreneur and the host of the podcast, Reimagining General Practice. Sam Fellowes is the Practice Manager at Birley Health Centre.

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on LinkedIn.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.

General practice, PCNs and federations are businesses in every sense of the word but it’s not always easy to get everyone involved to acknowledge this.

Its sometimes even harder for all concerned to adopt that approach to the management and ownership of these organisations.

I wanted to explore what it means to ‘manage a business in primary care’ and invited George Gavriel, a GP with all the right skills and experience to help me. He shares his thoughts on:

• Why it’s important to manage your practice or PCN as a business. 
• What ‘manage as a business’ looks like.
• Some important do’s and don’ts
• And how a business management qualification like an MBA helps you manage your primary care business.

 We end by each giving you one business management approach to takeaway and use in your practice or PCN. 

George Gavriel is an experienced GP, leader and educator with an impressive portfolio of roles and responsibilities in primary care businesses.

He is:

• GP Partner at The Swan Practice, Buckinghamshire
• Clinical Director of The Swan Network PCN
• Director of Buckinghamshire GP Provider Alliance
• BOB ICB Board member for Primary Medical Services
• He has an MBA and a PGCMDE

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on Linkedin.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.

This episode is as much for GP Partners as it is for Practice Managers. It will help you if you’re setting the expectations or expectations have been made of you.

 What’s expected of a Practice Manager can vary greatly, and they’re often unrealistic and damaging. When that happens it’s usually to the detriment of the practice and Practice Manager, but get it right and it can deliver a successful practice and Practice Manager.

In this episode Peter Maynard joins me to discuss ‘What’s expected of a Practice Manager’, and we consider;

• Typical expectations
• Unrealistic expectations
• What to do if expectations aren’t being met
• Why it’s important to set the right expectations

 We also each give our usual podcast takeaway to help you if you’re a PM struggling to meet the expectations you’ve been given.

Peter Maynard is the Executive Partner at Horfield Health Centre, an 18,000 list size practice in Bristol. He is also the Institute of General Practice Management Regional Representative for Bristol, North Somerset and Gloucestershire. He began his primary care career in 2017 and prior to this had a long and successful career as a solicitor.   

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on LinkedIn.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.

The interviewer you are listening to in this podcast is ‘Niamh’, an AI voice powered by PlayHT, https://play.ht/.

I wanted to do a solo episode to share more about my career, interests and Leadership in Practice, but I don’t find recording solo enjoyable or easy, so instead I thought I would try something different. It was certainly easier and loads more fun, and I love how it’s turned out. 

Enjoy!

The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership in my book Leadership in Practice and my blogs, both of which you can find at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on Linkedin.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.

The role of a Practice Manager has changed greatly since I joined general practice in 2008. The responsibilities are varied, extensive and significant, and in any other sector they would be in the job description of a Managing Director or Operations Director. 

The Practice Manager is running the business in every sense, and to succeed in such a fast paced, complex and demanding environment a broad range of skills is needed, and increasingly the support of a strong, dedicated and specialised team.

In this podcast I was privileged to be joined by Kay Keane to discuss:

• What do the responsibilities of the typical Practice Manager look like today and what are the essential skills and qualities needed to meet these? 
• What are those special or additional skills and qualities that can set you apart as a Practice Manager?
• What skills and qualities will be the most important for the Practice Manager in the future?

 And we each give one takeaway to help you with your development as a Practice Manager.

 Kay Keane is a Practice Manager at Urban Village Medical Practice in Ancoats, Manchester, a unique practice having a standard contract, but also a contract to provide health care to the city’s homeless community. Kay is also a founding member and Director of The Institute of General Practice Management, Director and Trustee of the National Association of Link Workers, and she is regularly seen providing keynote speeches and chairing session at the leading primary care conferences.

 The Leadership in Practice podcast, hosted by Gary Hughes, is for Practice Managers, Partners and all Leaders in general practice and primary care. If you liked this podcast you can find even more ideas and tools to help you improve your Leadership in my book Leadership in Practice and my blogs, both of which you can find at www.leadershipinpractice.co.uk.

If you need help with a leadership challenge, I’d be delighted to discuss this with you and you can contact me at gary@leadershipinpractice.co.uk, or on Linkedin.

If you want to be a regular listener to the show the easiest way is to subscribe on our website or at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite Podcast platform.