As a result of the recent NHS reforms following the white paper, liberating the NHS (Department of Health, 2010a), which subsequently became the Health and Social Care Act 2012, it is clear that primary care, led by GPs, faces a considerable change to how healthcare to the population is delivered. Meeting these challenges proves to be difficult due to the nature of primary care contracting, in that GPs are responsible for their own organisations and are required to reconfigure their organisations accordingly. Due to the traditional structure of primary care, GPs appear to lack skills in business management and leadership. The study gains an understanding of the qualities GPs have, and need, from a business perspective, in relation to primary care\ud
management, and further develops a qualities framework for use by both current and future GPs. This has been achieved through a qualitative study making use of both structured and unstructured research methods, with the\ud
use of thematic analysis drawing meaning from the data. Findings indicate that doctors who have chosen to become a GP tend to not consider their role as business leaders, and opt to learn these skills while on-the-job, although since the implementation of the recent NHS reforms, newly qualified doctors are undertaking business skills training to support their applications for partnership posts. Findings also indicate that GPs see the need to hold business skills as partners within their own organisations as a necessary evil, but see the need to hold these same skills for their membership of the CCG\ud
as unnecessarily imposed. A qualities framework has been developed to support GPs with their need to obtain business management and leadership skills, from a general practice perspective. This maps six key qualities across\ud
nine domains, measured through a number of competencies for each mapping. It is recommended that the qualities framework developed as part of this research study is applied in general practice in relation to both\ud
organisational development and educational strategy. It is anticipated that this will contribute to both general practice performance and improvements in primary healthcare service delivery, from a general practice perspective