eNews May 2013: Spotlight on...Dr Nikita Kanani

How would you describe your role?

I have the definition of a portfolio career! At the moment, I enjoy four different roles – being a GP in South East London, Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Lead for Integrated Care & Diabetes, Medical Advisor for NHS Direct and Quality Improvement (QI) Lead for the FMLM.

What are your main challenges and how do you overcome them?

In commissioning, it would be how to overcome the inherent difficulties of managing multiple stakeholders across multiple boundaries – which may be geographical as well as professional and organisational. Managing expectations and knowing how to negotiate are crucial skills, especially when seeking stakeholder and public engagement. An awareness of commercial sensitivities is also essential to my work.

Personally, my main challenge is managing my portfolio and ensuring a ‘work-life’ merge. I have a 5 year old boy and 18 month old girl who are the core of my own value set, so my career must work around them!

How does FMLM fit in?

I was asked if I would help develop a QI strategy for FMLM, first establishing if FMLM has any role to play in QI. Clearly FMLM does have an essential role to play, not least by virtue of the need to develop medical leaders and managers that can support an NHS culture that promotes patient safety.

As the QI lead for FMLM I’m constantly looking to engage with QI networks, link people together and develop an online presence for the organisation that explains the role of QI in the development of individuals, teams and organisational systems.