Talking General Practice

Throughout August we’re bringing you some of the best interviews from series one of the podcast. This week, Emma is talking to GP Dr Amy Small about living with long COVID in an interview that was recorded in November 2021. Amy caught Covid right at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and went on to develop long COVID. In this conversation she explains how long COVID has affected her life, her...

This week Emma speaks with Dr Gemma Wilkinson, a GP in Nottingham and clinical lead for the Nottinghamshire GP Phoenix Programme, a workforce support organisation affiliated to Nottinghamshire LMC. The GP Phoenix Programme has a range of support programmes that focus on GP retention at every stage of a doctor’s career – from GP training, to newly-qualified GPs, through to mid-career and also those...

In our fortnightly news review, the team discusses some numbers that Nick’s crunched looking at GP partners across England and which areas are losing partners fastest, as well as some predictions about workforce figures from the Health Foundation They also talk about latest developments on visa problems facing international medical graduates coming out of GP training, the latest health and social...

This week Emma speaks to practice managers Jo Wadey and Nicola Davies who are also directors of the Institute of General Practice Management (IGPM). They discuss how and why they set up the IGPM, the institute’s new scheme for accreditation of practice managers and their views about practice managers being excluded from NHS England’s new to partnership scheme. Jo and Nicola also talk about the imp...

This week the team discusses what’s been happening at the BMA’s annual representative meeting this week, including a vote that could determine the future of primary care networks, talk of pay increases and the latest on stamping out sexism in the BMA. They talk about the GMC reversing a decision to suspend GP Dr Manjula Arora for one month after she said she was promised a laptop by her employers....

This week Emma speaks to RCGP chair Professor Martin Marshall ahead of the college’s annual conference next week. Professor Marshall talks about the government’s attitude to general practice, how he believes the workforce and workload crisis could be tackled and the impact the backlog of care is having on general practice. He also discusses the future of the NHS under integrated care systems and h...

This week Emma and Nick look at the results of a court hearing involving NHS Property Services and what this means for practices located in buildings owned by the organisation. They also talk about the findings from a new survey by the BMA into racism in the NHS and looking ahead to the BMA’s annual representative meeting in just over a week and the primary care motions that are up for debate. Fin...

This week on the podcast GPonline editor Emma Bower speaks to Dr Emma Wong, chair of the RCGP's First 5 committee. The committee represents newly qualified GPs in their first 5 years of practice within the college. They talk about making the transition from training to independent practice, the support that's available to new GPs and Emma's decision to become a partner straight out of trainin...

This week Emma and Nick discuss the stocktake of primary care that has just been carried out on behalf of NHS England by GP Dr Claire Fuller. They look at what it had to say and what it could mean for general practice. They also talk about general practice workforce figures and the government’s ongoing attempts to misrepresent the data. And they look at what GPs really think about primary care net...

This week Emma speaks to Dr Euan Strachan-Orr, chair of the BMA’s GP trainee subcommittee and a third year GP trainee in Liverpool. They talk about the results of a recent BMA survey of GP trainees that looked at their experiences of GP training and future career intentions. They also discuss the problems with the recorded consultation assessment - the exam that all trainees currently need to pass...

This week the team discusses what went on at last week’s conference of local medical committees UK conference. They look at dissatisfaction around representation of GPs within the BMA and round up some votes from the conference that set out what LMCs want to happen to tackle the current workload crisis. They also talk about the results of a survey the BMA conducted among GP trainees and ask what i...

This week Emma speaks to GPs Dr Tommy Perkins and Dr Ed Cantelo who set up the company Medics Money to help educate doctors about finance and ensure they had access to reliable financial information. They talk about why they set up the company and Ed explains how he went from being a chartered accountant and tax adviser to a doctor. They also discuss the problems surrounding the NHS pension, provi...

In our fortnightly news review the team looks at the latest workforce and appointment statistics for general practice in England. They also discuss what’s happening about specialist status for GPs and the latest developments in the Rebuild General Practice campaign. And they take a look ahead to what will be up for debate at next week’s UK LMCs conference and round off with a bit of good news abou...

On the podcast this week GPonline’s senior reporter Luke Haynes speaks to Dr Amy Small, a GP in Lothian, Scotland, about her work with the Rebuild General Practice campaign. The campaign is aiming to raise awareness of the crisis facing general practice. It’s also calling for a plan to tackle recruitment, reduce GP workload and deal with the other issues driving GPs out of the profession such as b...

In our fortnightly news review the GPonline team looks at the demise of smaller GP practices and asks whether small practices are now a thing of the past. They talk about what plans for enhanced access, that will be introduced under this year’s network contract DES from October, mean for practices and PCNs. And they discuss what LMCs think about the BMA’s approach to GP contract negotiations. Fina...

This week Talking General Practice speaks to National Association of Primary Care (NAPC) president Dr Johnny Marshall. The NAPC is the organisation behind the primary care home model, which it began developing in the early 2010s. Primary care networks, introduced as part of the 2019 GP contract, were based on the NAPC’s model. In this podcast, GPonline senior reporter Luke Haynes speaks to Dr Mars...

This week Talking General Practice takes an in-depth look at the GP workforce. Last week GPonline published a new interactive map, which analyses data to determine which parts of the country are most at risk from an ageing workforce. On the podcast we discuss what all this data tells us about the state of the GP workforce and some of the challenges facing general practice. We also assess why patie...

This week Talking General Practice speaks to Dr Pavlo Kolesnyk - a GP and educator in Uzhhorod, a city in the west of Ukraine. GPonline’s senior reporter Luke Haynes talks to Dr Kolesynk about the impact the war has had on his city, including the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the east, and how family doctors in Uzhhorod are maintaining primary care services in the face of a sev...

This week the team discusses the launch of a new campaign aimed at rebuilding general practice. They also talk about the House of Commons health and social care select committee’s inquiry into the future of general practice, which held its first evidence session last week. Both of these feature prominent appearances from former health and social care secretary Jeremy Hunt.   They look at how...

This week Talking General Practice speaks to Professor Dame Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard. Dame Helen is the immediate past chair of the RCGP and is currently chair of the National Academy for Social Prescribing and also chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. We talk about what the National Academy for Social Prescribing is aiming to do, the evidence to support the use of social prescrib...

The team discusses the new GP contract for 2022/23, which will be imposed on practices after talks between NHS England and the BMA broke down. They highlight what’s in the deal and how GPs have reacted to it. They also take a look at a new report from the think tank Policy Exchange, which recommends that the GMS contract should be scrapped within a decade, with GPs becoming 'predominantly salaried...

GPonline’s senior reporter Luke Haynes speaks to Dr Farzana Hussain a GP and primary care network clinical director in Newham, east London. Dr Hussain recently announced she is stepping down from her role as clinical director at the end of March. She has been a big advocate for the PCNs since they were introduced in 2019, but issues such as top-down management, endless meetings, and restrictive re...

The team takes a closer look at the GP workforce and which parts of England are most under-doctored. They also look at how primary care networks are faring with recruitment of new staff and why being a clinical director is an increasingly tough job. And they highlight reaction to the government’s plan for how England will ‘live with COVID’ as well as some updates to the COVID-19 vaccination progra...

This week Talking General Practice speaks to Professor Dame Clare Gerada, president of the Royal College of GPs and medical director of NHS Practitioner Health, the NHS service that looks after doctors and other staff experiencing mental ill health. Dame Clare explains how she came to set up NHS Practitioner Health, the impact the pandemic has had on GPs’ mental health and what should be done to b...

This week the GPonline team looks at the government’s plan to tackle the backlog of care in the NHS and what it all means for general practice. They’re also discussing reports that health secretary Sajid Javid has recommended to Boris Johnson that family doctors should be directly employed by hospitals instead of running their own surgeries - a proposal some have said would effectively nationalise...