Wow! Our 100th episode. We are privileged to welcome Dr Robert Varnam, Head of General Practice Development at NHS England. Robert is the foremost advocate of the ten high impact interventions outlined in the GP Five Year Forward View. In this podcast Robert explains how the ten high impact changes developed, how they have impacted on general practice and what the future for general practice might look like.

GP Dr Amit Bhargava has been involved in commissioning in Crawley, West Sussex for many years. Recent statistics (from NHS England in October 2017) show that Crawley has the lowest rate of emergency admissions in the country. In this episode Amit tells Ben about how Crawley has approached tackling health inequalities, the role for general practice and the partnerships they have developed with the local authority, the community and third sector providers. He goes on to describe the “social prescription offer” made to patients and how the community is beginning to focus on wellness.

Reform is an independent think-tank aiming to improve the way public services are delivered. They have recently published a report called “A design diagnosis: reinvigorating the primary care estate” and, in this episode, Ben talks to two of the authors of that report, Maisie Borrows and Daniel El-Gamry about their findings, the role of STPs in development of the estate, concerns about funding and some of the key lessons they have learnt.

Louise Greenwood is responsible for training and education at Wessex LMCS; an umbrella body covering LMCs across a large swathe of central-south England. In this podcast Louise tells Ben about the activities that have been put in place to support practice managers in the area including a new appraisal system that strengthens PM appraisal and provides productive and motivating time for the appraisees (and their appraisers) whilst also identifying learning needs and allowing planning for the future.