Terry Kemple was a past president of the RCGP and is now the RCGP’s representative for Sustainability and Climate Change. In this episode he talks to Ben about the Green Impact for Health Toolkit. The Toolkit enables general practices to plan and implement actions they can take to become more sustainable and covers areas such as health and well-being, water use, recycling and procurement. Terry describes the uses of the toolkit, the associated awards scheme and how practices can become involved.

Andy Sixsmith is a GP in West Yorkshire and is involved in workforce development through NHS England and the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership (WYHP). In this episode Andy also talks to Ben about his recent decision to join a practice in the Modality super-partnership. In terms of workforce development he talks about the challenges currently being faced and the plan put in place by WYHP (including the formation of four Primary Care Training Hubs) and about the early impact that this new approach is having.

Jake Lee is GP Medical Director of One Care, a federation of 82 practices in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Formed in 2014 on the back of a bid for the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund they have grown to serve 1 million patients. In this podcast Jake tells Ben the story of that growth, the relationship that has been developed with and across practices, how the federation works and about the many projects they have successfully delivered.

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.

The Neighbourhood Development Programme in City and Hackney in London is a primary care network based around eight neighbourhoods with populations of between 30-50,000. The neighbourhoods are structured round GP practices with a bottom-up, clinically-led support network bringing together all local partners engaged in integrated health and social care. In this podcast Ben talks to Clinical Lead and local GP Dr Steph Coughlin and Nina Griffith who is the work stream director for Neighbourhoods. They describe how the network functions and how it is bringing together all constituent organisations to improve access, reduce duplication, improve integration and, in the medium term, change outcomes for patients.

Alison Halliwell is a mental health practitioner leading a team in general practice in Fleetwood. The service Alison leads began in 2004 when 42% of patients were presenting to GPs with a mental health component to their illness. Fourteen years on and now only 8% of her GPs’ time is spent dealing with mental health issues. The service has won six national awards and Alison explains how it began, how it developed, how it runs and offers advice to other practices thinking of doing the same.

Farzana Hussain is a GP in the London Borough of Newham and a great advocate for quality improvement. For Farzana it is less a task and more like a way of life. In this podcast she explains why. She describes the three tools she has utilised in her own practice (The Change Model, Process Mapping and the PDSA Cycle) with some practical examples. She also explains the impact that building quality improvement into her day-to-day activities has had on the practice and on her.

This is the concluding part of our discussion with Andy Wilkins, the co-author of a report called Beyond The Fog: A future for public healthcare. In the first part published last week (find it here) Andy described the trends that will influence the future of healthcare. In this episode he looks at the likely impact that the developments described in the first episode might have on the role of general practice and the wider community of health. He looks at areas already taking the first steps and explains more about how he hopes the final report will be used in shaping health policy and describing an inspiring vision for the future.

Andy Wilkins is co-author of a new report called Beyond The Fog: A future for public healthcare which sets out to provide a provocative, ambitious vision for what healthcare might look like in 10 to 15 years’ time. In this fascinating and challenging episode (the first of two) Andy presents the six biggest trends (including technology, future society and systems biology) which he believes will influence changes in healthcare. He looks at the idea of “Always On” healthcare, based on a real-time view of patients and he explains the concept of a Digital Health Coach, effectively an Alexa for the future offering 24 hour advice and support to maintain an individual’s health. Part Two follows next week.

In the third of our series of podcasts looking at pharmacists in general practice Ben talks to Ceinwen Mannall who is the national lead for Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice education at the Centre for Postgraduate Pharmacy Education (CPPE). In this episode she tells Ben about the training available to pharmacists moving into general practice, the impact and value that pharmacists have and tips for practices thinking of employing a clinical pharmacist.

James Morrow is the Chief Exec and Managing Partner of Granta Medical Practices in Sawston, Cambridge. In this episode James tells Ben how the benefits of increased scale have led to a new model for delivering core general practice which has improved access, eased recruitment and developed new and constructive dialogues with secondary care. He touches on the way the practices are involving staff in innovation and working with the local community. Looking to the future he describes a vision where the staff will share ownership of the practice through a Board of Trustees whilst also maintaining the independence of general practice.

Imagine a world where a patient’s first contact with primary care is through a robot. Digital Health Futurist Maneesh Juneja believes that this is a likely scenario for general practice in the near future, if not an inevitable consequence of staff shortages and shifts in public expectation. In this episode he describes how near we are to developing and using “caring robots” and discusses some of the ethical issues as well as the barriers and benefits to digital health.

Regular listeners will remember Paula Wright from Episode 117 when she talked to Ben about GP learning groups. In this episode Paula (who is a GP in the North East of England and GP tutor for Newcastle, Health Education England – North East team) highlights the retained GP scheme, designed to keep GPs who are at risk of leaving, in the workforce. Paula explains how the scheme works, the financial support for both GPs and practices, the application process and much more.

Social prescribing is one of the Ten High Impact Changes from the GP Forward View. But what is it? How does it work and who can benefit? In this week’s podcast Ben speaks with Nick Sharples from training consultancy DNA Insight. Nick explains how his involvement in social prescribing evolved from his company’s focus on active signposting (listen to our previous podcast with Nick here). He also explains the three factors which will enable social prescribing to work best, how it is likely to evolve and much more.

Here is the second part of our expert panel discussion considering the impact of millennials on general practice. In this part the panel considers the impact of the differing needs of millennial patients, how disruption and innovation will continue to influence and whether, ultimately, millennials pose an opportunity or a threat.

If you missed Part One you can find it here.

The panel consists of:

Surina Chibber: a GP and founder of My Locum Manager

Aisha Malik: a GP, social media strategist and founder of Doctors in Business

Mayur Vibhuti: a GP and Visiting Reader in Medical Leadership at Canterbury and Christchurch University

Here is the first part of our fourth expert panel discussion. This time we are looking at what will be the impact of millennials on general practice. In this first part the panel considers what a millennial is, what is driving them to be different to the older generation and how the system might need to change to accommodate this new generation.

Part Two will follow next week.

This time Ben is joined by:

Surina Chibber: a GP and founder of My Locum Manager

Aisha Malik: a GP, social media strategist and founder of Doctors in Business

Mayur Vibhuti: a GP and Visiting Reader in Medical Leadership at Canterbury and Christchurch University

This is the second in our short summer series of pharmacy-focussed podcasts. In this episode Ben talks to Duncan Petty who runs Prescribing Support Services, one of the largest suppliers of pharmacists to general practice. Duncan, who was one of the first clinical pharmacists to be employed in general practice, explains the prerequisites necessary for pharmacists to work well in general practice, the benefits they bring, how at-scale working impacts on them and how they can deliver prescribing savings. He also explains his vision for the future of primary care based pharmacy.

In the first of two pharmacy-focussed podcasts we talk to Ravi Chal who is a pharmacist and founder of Future Pharmacy, a company which is developing an app to work as a clinical decision support system for pharmacists. In this podcast Ravi explains how the app will work; offering doctors and pharmacists both a dosage calculator and access to the four largest pharmaceutical databases via the user’s phone. Ravi also has a company called Locum Passport; an automated document wallet for locums which facilitates the transfer of personal information between agencies. Ravi also considers how technology will develop within the NHS in the future.

This is the second part of our panel discussion looking at how the new models of care will impact on and change general practice (Part One is available here). In this final part of the podcast the panel consider what is motivating general practice to adopt the new models of care, about shifting the balance between secondary and primary care, how working at scale will impact and achieving a greater voice for general practice within the system.

Our fourth panel discussion on Millennial GPs will follow in a few weeks’ time.

This time Ben is joined by:

Nav Chana: GP and chair of the National Association of Primary Care

Nick Hicks: Ex-GP and CEO of COBIC an independent consultancy focussing on outcomes-based health and care

Tracey Vell: GP, Chief Executive of Manchester LMC and Associate Lead for Primary and Community Care in the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership

This is the third in our series of panel discussions in which Ben is joined by a panel of renowned national experts. This time we discuss how the new models of care will impact on and change general practice. In this first part the panel considers the impact so far of the Five Year Forward View, closer integration of general practice with the rest of the system, what GPs should be doing now and whether choosing to lessen the independence of general practice would be a good or bad thing.

Part Two will follow next week.

This time Ben is joined by:

Nav Chana: GP and chair of the National Association of Primary Care

Nick Hicks: Ex-GP and CEO of COBIC an independent consultancy focussing on outcomes-based health and care

Tracey Vell: GP, Chief Executive of Manchester LMC and Associate Lead for Primary and Community Care in the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership

Paula Wright is a GP in the North East of England and GP tutor for Newcastle, Health Education England – North East team. In this podcast Paula explains the origins and value of GP Learning Groups; what they are, how they work and how they can be set up locally.

In this episode Ben visits Thistlemoor Medial Centre in Peterborough to talk to Dr Neil Modha about their fascinating and innovative model for running what they call Open Access in general practice. Their system developed in response to a shortage of GPs and a high migrant population that do not have English as a first language. Using Healthcare Assistants from the local community to take histories and translate for the GPs, the model means that on some days 300 patients can be seen in the practice and has meant that admissions into hospital are some of the lowest in the area.