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.