We all want to share our ideas and innovative approaches to tackle the challenges facing healthcare. Yet this desire for improvement often clashes with the drive for standardisation. It’s a real push-and-pull dynamic: on one hand, we strive to eliminate real or perceived postcode lotteries – where some patients, on the face of it appear, to receive exceptional care while others struggle to access even the basics; on the other, we’re eager to promote what works and raise standards across the board.
So how do we reconcile these competing aims? And does it really matter?
The truth is, we work in a complex system where outcomes and performance are critical – not just for patients, but financially too. In Bradford District and Craven alone, we have 12 Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and over 60 GP practices, each operating with distinct priorities and approaches. Variation is inevitable and sometimes necessary if we are to truly deliver population health tailored to the needs of our communities – but it’s how we harness and learn from that variation that makes the difference.
Take Airedale and Wharfedale, for instance. The Blood Pressure Connect programme – developed by Keighley Healthy Living in collaboration with WACA and Modality PCNs – supports people with hypertension through non-clinical, lifestyle-based interventions.
By promoting healthier eating, regular physical activity, smoking cessation, stress reduction, social connection and improved sleep, the programme has delivered remarkable outcomes: 89% of participants made at least one lifestyle change; 72% saw a reduction in blood pressure; and 32% saw a reduction in their body mass index (BMI).
This kind of impact shouldn’t be confined to one part of the district – it should be the standard across the place we serve, Bradford District and Craven.
So how do we scale initiatives like this?
A key part of the solution may lie in building effective peer learning networks – spaces where PCNs, voluntary community and social enterprise sector (VCSE) organisations, and other stakeholders can come together to share challenges, exchange ideas, and co-develop solutions. Our Community of Practice is already laying the foundations for this kind of collaboration, nurturing a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
We could well be laying the ground for preparing for the three shifts in the Government’s 10 year plan for health, especially its focus on shifting care from hospital to community and from moving from sickness to prevention. However our work started well before these changes were even mooted, in fact we started before the General Election of 2024 had happened – maybe we are already ahead of our time!
Of course, local solutions will always emerge to meet local needs – and rightly so. But without a mechanism to share, sustain and embed what works, we risk ending up with a patchwork system, where good ideas flicker and fade. Even with innovation hubs and best practice incubators, initiatives can burn bright but struggle to survive without long-term system-wide support.
At our February 2025 Community of Practice session at Ridge Medical Practice, Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber emphasised the need for strong partnerships, patient-centred approaches, and real-world evidence to successfully scale innovation across the system. The same principles apply to embedding innovation in community-based primary care.
We must invest in shared learning, back grassroots initiatives, and most importantly -make space for change.
It’s time for a candid conversation about how we create the right conditions for progress. If we get this right, we can shift from isolated pockets of brilliance to a truly integrated, consistently excellent system.
It could well be another example of Bradford District and Craven, and our wider West Yorkshire system, leading the way thanks to our commitment to community-centred solutions built with and by communities for our communities.
Bill Graham, Community of Practice Facilitator on behalf of the Bradford District and Craven Innovation Hub. With additional reporting by Francesca Quartarulli – Programme Manager, Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber.
This blog forms part of a community of practice series looking at primary care through a community lens
These blogs will be based on work taking place in Bradford District and Craven, focusing on cutting through our complex system to share what works well and how we can learn how we might work better together. This forms part of our Health Foundation funded innovation hub programme. This is the second of six blogs from our Bradford District and Craven Community of Practice for Primary Care through a Community Lens – a collaborative, evolving space where professionals learn, connect, and drive real change in healthcare access, service integration, and patient outcomes.