The programme supports clinicians to be up to date with best practice, feel supported and confident in their clinical decision making, be connected with the wider primary care team, and optimally use resources minimising unhealthy variation in practice.

Between July and December 2023, Pegasus Health ran a National e-Small Group Series offering the chance for a limited number of primary health clinicians across Aotearoa NZ to experience three of the current topics. The topics were: Early Cancer Diagnosis in Primary Care, Neurodiversity with a focus on ADHD and Supporting Healthy Weight.

The team wanted to understand whether there was demand and interest outside of Canterbury, and the feasibility of running a national programme for individual clinicians who may be based in different geographical regions from one another.

There were 47 individuals who registered their interest in the series and 18 clinicians were enrolled into the group to ensure the optimal group size of 12-15 people was maintained.

When reviewing how the series went, there were some key highlights:

• Programme was of high quality – 97% of attendees rated the overall quality of the meetings as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
• Strong interest generated from GPs – 95% of attendees across all sessions were GPs with a small number of Registered Nurses and Nurse Practitioners attending.
• Value of the programme demonstrated for other regions – 90% of attendees could see the Small Group programme supporting general practice in their region.

“It was really positive to read some of the attendee feedback following the series” said Louise Kennedy – Service Manager for the Clinical Quality and Education Team at Pegasus Health “some of the commentary highlighted what we know is really special and unique about the programme” Louise said.

Some comments from attendees:

“Format was excellent. Pre reading was a great idea”.

“The facilitator was brilliant- always had thought provoking
questions to keep the conversations going”.

“Thank you, I enjoyed, and good to get perspectives from
different regions”.

Louise said, “through evaluating this series, we found the quality and impact of the programme was consistent with our local programme despite the different locations of attendees and running exclusively on zoom”.

The team at Pegasus Health are now working on developing a subscription-based offering for the Clinical Connect Programme. This new approach will create opportunities for primary healthcare clinicians across the motu to access the programme regardless of geographic location.