Andrew Boyd is the RCGP’s Clinical Champion for Physical Activity and Lifestyle. The RCGP has formed a partnership with Park Run UK and has already signed up over 400 practices to the park run initiative. Park Runs are free, weekly 5 kilometre runs (or walks) open to anyone over the age of 4 of any ability. They run in over 750 locations in the UK and have proven a hugely successful way of encouraging physical activity and wellbeing. Andrew explains how the partnership came about, and how practices can become involved. He describes two case-studies of patients who have benefited and explains some of the other initiatives covered by his champion role.

In this episode we hear about Northumbria Primary Care (NPC), a network of seven GP practices formed in 2015 across Northumberland and North Tyneside. The “twist” is that NPC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust, the local acute trust, and that all the GPs are salaried. Ben is joined by NPC’s Medical Director Dr Nigel Twelves and Dr Lily Lamb, a GP and their Education Lead. Nigel and Lily explain how the model works, how it benefits patients and GPs and how the relationship with the acute trust has developed and is developing.

Cassandra Baiano is a medical student in the first cohort of the innovative Scottish Graduate Entry Medicine (ScotGEM) MBChB at the University of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. ScotGEM is “designed to develop doctors interested in a career as a generalist practitioner within NHS Scotland….(and) offers a unique and innovative four-year graduate entry medical programme…and focuses on rural medicine and healthcare improvement” In this podcast Cassandra describes the course and explains how the programme is different to traditional medical training.

Rachel Morris is a GP, an executive coach and presenter with Red Whale; producers of the famous GP Update. In Episode 108 of the General Practice Podcast Rachel described two courses that Red Whale run to develop primary care leaders. In this episode she looks at GP resilience; what it is and how can you acquire it. She considers the causes of stress and burnout and points to a range of useful resources GPs can use to develop their personal resilience.