This week Ben talks to Jenny Drury who is a paramedic who left the ambulance service following an injury and joined a GP practice as a care co-ordinator. In this podcast she explains to Ben how that non-clinical role led to her present role taking on home visits. Jenny describes the way the system works and the quantity and types of visits she undertakes as well as offering advice to practices and paramedics who might be contemplating the move.
Nick Hicks has been a GP and a Chief Executive and Director of Public Health for a PCT. He is now CEO of an independent consultancy called COBIC focussing on outcomes-based health and care. In this podcast Nick describes how the experience of working directly with communities to discuss their health outcomes led to the formation of COBIC. He describes a system of outcome-based contracting that creates the conditions for innovation and outlines for Ben the fundamentals of accountable care.
Jonathan Serjeant is a GP and Director of Here, a Brighton-based company that developed a system of workflow optimisation (regular listeners will remember Jonathan talking about this in the very popular Episode 46). Jonathan is also a founder member of NHS Collaborate, a leadership network for primary care leaders. In this episode Jonathan explains what NHS Collaborate is and the impact that membership has had on him and his thinking around the future of general practice.
In this audio-essay Ben looks at the likely future for GP federations. Driven by significant changes in general practice and the NHS, federations are taking on new roles and the once clear blue water separating federations from individual practices is beginning to muddy. Using soundbites from previous episodes of the podcast, Ben puts forward an argument that describes a positive future but, at the same time, questions the fundamental model of independent general practice.