When we delegate, we remain accountable for the task. You can’t delegate accountability. Our responsibility for delegating therefore doesn’t stop when we brief people. When it does, it would be better described as abdication rather than delegation.

As you are accountable, you need to know that a task has been completed with sufficient quality. Large or critical tasks may require a specific discussion to understand how they have been completed. Regular tasks may be discussed as part of a regular one-to-one or team discussion.

There will be tasks that you delegate that are recurrent and may be completed by a number of people with your team. These might include checking the fridge temperature or recording near misses.

Using a model day approach, a list of activities that are initialled when they are done each day or noting any appropriate occurrences, will give you confidence that these tasks are being completed and provides a useful audit trail as well. The model day approach can be developed into a model week and a model month.

Effective delegation takes more time in the short term. Like all things of value, you need to invest in the process. In the medium and longer terms, this investment pays dividends, increasing your team’s productivity, improving job satisfaction and reducing your stress. It’s worth making a plan to delegate more.

Record your learning

Use this learning as one of your CPD entries for your revalidation. Use these questions to formulate your CPD entry: 

What have you learned by completing this module? 

How have you applied the learning? 

How will the learning benefit the people using your services?

You can record and save your CPD entry onto your own personal learning log at p3pharmacy.co.uk/revalidation