Standardising and personalising a policy library across 9 practices

Executive summary

Walkden & Little Hulton PCN's nine member practices each maintained their own policy library, filed in different systems, in different formats and in varying states of currency. Sansos, through its PolicyEase service, was commissioned to standardise and personalise the policy library across all nine practices.

The project updated, restructured and personalised roughly 5,000 documents PCN-wide, moving every practice onto one house style while preserving what made each practice's version genuinely its own.

Eight of the nine practices were fully standardised within 6 weeks, against a 12-week target - the ninth constrained by capacity rather than engagement.

Background

Each of the nine practices maintained its own policy library, averaging more than 600 documents per site, filed across different systems and locations and in varying states of currency. Across the PCN this amounted to some 5,000 documents needing review, updating and standardisation.

The PCN's wider objective was provable, measurable improvement in efficiency and quality, with a particular focus on inter-practice collaboration and getting all nine practices working to a common standard.

Project objectives

The objective was to:

• Update, structure, personalise and standardise the existing policy libraries across all nine practices
• Focus on accessibility and consistency without erasing what made each practice's version its own

The approach

Outcome

• All policies updated to their latest version
• Each practice now holds the same policy, wording and formatting
• A structured filing system with easy accessibility
• Documents personalised for each individual practice

Results

The project was completed in 6 weeks from start to finish for all participating practices. Eight of the nine practices were fully standardised, representing around 90% of PCN membership; the ninth was constrained by capacity rather than resistance to the changes.

5,000+ documents were reviewed, updated and personalised across the PCN, moving nine previously inconsistent libraries onto one shared house style.

Consultant reflection

This project showed that standardisation and personalisation are not opposites - a shared house style gave every practice a common structure, while agreed personalisation parameters meant each practice's policies still read as genuinely theirs.

Nine practices holding a combined 5,000 documents in inconsistent formats is not, on its own, a governance failure. It becomes one when nobody can say with confidence which version is current at which practice. Standardising the library closed that gap directly.

The pace of delivery - 6 weeks against a 12-week target - reflected a PCN-wide commitment to working to a single, common standard rather than nine separate approaches to the same problem.

Conclusion

Walkden & Little Hulton PCN now holds a single, standardised and personalised policy library across eight of its nine practices, replacing nine inconsistent systems with one shared structure everyone can rely on.

For PCNs managing policy libraries across multiple sites, the experience here shows that consistency and site-level personalisation are not in tension - the two can be delivered together, and quickly, with the right house style and a clear standardisation process.