We have three guests this episode to talk about the unique Salaried Trainee Practice Manager programme developed by the City and Hackney GP Confederation. Dr Mary Clarke CBE the Confederation’s Director of Workforce, Grace Neil, the Programme Co-ordinator for the scheme and trainee Practice Manager Kerry Reynolds join Ben to variously explain how and why the programme was developed, the format and content of the programme and what it felt like to be a participant.

Tom Howseman is a GP Partner in a large urban practice in Northampton. When their number of GP partners fell from twelve to six due to retirements and they couldn’t recruit they decided to adopt a more multi-disciplinary approach. Over the last two years they have introduced and refined a system of pre-triage protocols which enable reception staff to collect information from patients presenting on the day which is then helpful to the pre-triage clinicians in directing those patients to the appropriate member of the emergency care team. 20,000 additional appointments have been created through this system and in this episode Tom explains how they have done it.

Last Thursday (14th March) was International Social Prescribing Day and we brought you a short series of podcasts to recognise this. Last week we gave you social prescribing ambassador Marie-Anne Essam. This week it is the turn of Christiana Melam who is Chief Executive of the National Association of Link Workers; the national professional network for link workers. In this episode Christiana describes what the National Association does, outlines the roles and responsibilities of the link worker and suggests what primary care networks should be doing now to prepare for this role.

This Thursday (14th March) is International Social Prescribing Day. To recognise this and to focus on the new GP Contract commitment to provide link workers in all primary care networks, we begin a short series of two podcasts. In the first, this week, Ben talks to Marie-Anne Essam a GP in Herts Valley and an enthusiastic ambassador for social prescribing. She explains what it is and tells a powerful story about a patient of hers which amply illustrates the value of social prescription. She also talks about the role of link workers including their salary, their competences and their likely backgrounds

Ben’s special guest for the second week is Dr Nikki Kanani, Director of Primary Care for NHS England. You can listen to the first episode here. In this second part she addresses the concerns of podcast listeners about primary care networks including population size, hosting of the networks and the role of federations. She looks at how clinical leaders should be identified and focuses in detail on the timetable from March 2019 onwards and what practices should be doing now to guarantee success.