Talking General Practice

This week Emma and Nick are talking about the GP contract changes in England for 2023/24, which have been imposed on practices for the second year in a row after the government and the BMA failed to reach an agreement. They look at what the changes are, the implications for general practice and what could happen next. They also discuss this week’s unprecedented junior doctors’ strike, and speak to...

Emma speaks to Ben Gowland, director and founder of think tank and consultancy Ockham Healthcare and host of the General Practice Podcast.   Ben does a lot of work with primary care networks (PCNs) across England and in this conversation we look at what the future holds for PCNs as we enter the final year of the five-year GP contract that led to their introduction in 2019. Ben explains why he...

This week the team talks about ongoing GP contract negotiations in England for next year and asks whether the contract for 2023/24 could be imposed. They discuss a rise in partnership and PCN disputes and what might be behind this trend as well as the latest on this month’s junior doctor strikes. They also look at the government’s record on the NHS, including how it’s handling the care backlog and...

Emma speaks to Dr Rowena Christmas, chair of RCGP Wales and a GP in the Wye Valley on the Welsh/English border. Rowena has been heavily involved in the college’s work over the past couple of years on relationship-based care - or continuity of care - and in this conversation she explains why she feels this is so important and how GPs and practices can embed this in the way that they work. She also...

In our fortnightly news review the team looks at what we know about GP contract negotiations in England for 2023/24 after the BMA rejected NHS England’s ‘insulting’ offer. They discuss an integrated care board’s plans to commission all GP enhanced services via primary care networks and what the wider implications of this could be. And they talk about the findings of the GMC’s latest review on bias...

Emma speaks to NHS England’s director of healthcare inequalities and Midlands GP Professor Bola Owolabi about how to reduce inequity in healthcare. Bola talks about how she became interested in health inequalities, her vision for tackling inequity and she makes the economic argument for why we must address health disparities. Bola also explains NHS England’s CORE20PLUS5 approach to tackling inequa...

GPonline launched its new GP Insight data tool this week and our first project is a GP workforce tracker. On the podcast this week Nick and Emma look at some of the data in the tracker and what this tells us about the GP workforce in different parts of England. They also talk about a recently published study that highlights the impact that poor GP retention has on patients and the wider NHS and di...

The BMA is currently balloting junior doctor members on whether to take industrial action, which could see them stage a three-day walkout in March. This week Emma speaks to chair of the BMA’s GP trainee committee Dr David Smith about why junior doctors have reached this point. David explains why the BMA is pushing for full pay restoration for junior doctors and the impact that falling levels of pa...

Emma and Nick talk about Labour’s plans for the NHS and general practice more specifically, which have not gone down well with a lot of GPs. They also discuss plans to speed up patient discharges from hospitals and what this could mean for general practice as well as the RCGP’s new exam for GP trainees, which could be in place by the end of 2023. Our good news story this week takes a look at the l...

Kent GP Dr Chris Newman is one of the co-founders of Doctors for Extinction Rebellion, a group of healthcare professionals that campaigns for action on climate change. As part of his involvement in the group Chris has taken part in direct action and last year was arrested and charged under public order laws following a protest in central London. In this conversation Emma talks to Chris about why h...

With the NHS facing unprecedented pressure and horrendous stories emerging about the impact this has had on both patients and staff, we look at what the crisis means for general practice, what representative organisations want the government to do and what steps might need to be taken to help GP practices cope. We also discuss industrial action - in particular the BMA ballot of junior doctors, whi...

This week the team looks at record levels of drug shortages, the latest on group A strep and how it is affecting GPs and their teams and talk about the GP workforce in the most deprived parts of England. They also discuss why many practices are facing a precarious future because of the lack of GP partners and how inflation and the cost of living crisis is affecting GP practices – and there’s a goo...

Emma speaks to Dr Ellen Fallows a GP in Northamptonshire and vice president of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine about what lifestyle medicine is and how it can help GPs to improve patient outcomes. During this conversation Ellen explains how GPs can make use of lifestyle medicine in a 10-minute consultation, some of the evidence that supports the use of this approach to help improve outco...

This week Emma speaks to Professor Aruna Garcea, a GP partner and primary care network clinical director in Leicester. Aruna is chair of the NHS Confederation’s primary care network advisory group and she also sits on her integrated care system as a representative clinical director. In this conversation Aruna explains the impact PCNs have had already, what makes a strong PCN and some of the key ch...

In our regular news review Emma and Nick look at what the BMA, GPs and NHS England might want from a new contract deal in England. The current five-year deal comes to an end in March 2024, and this week English LMCs will be gathering in London to set out a vision for what they want the BMA to push for in upcoming contract negotiations that will decide what happens next. Emma and Nick look at what...

This week Emma speaks to new RCGP chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne. Professor Hawthorne takes over as college chair from Professor Martin Marshall this week – on 19 November – so this is one of her first interviews in the role. Professor Hawthorne has been a GP for 34 years and practises in South Wales. She is a professor and head of graduate entry medicine at the University of Swansea - a role sh...

Today on the podcast we’re looking at personalised care and health coaching and how they could help practices and PCNs to improve health outcomes and population health in their patch. Emma is talking to Sheffield GP Dr Ollie Hart, who is also clinical director of a primary care network in the city. Ollie has been heavily involved in promoting and developing patient-centred care in Sheffield. In pa...

On our regular news round-up Emma and Nick look at the review into how the GMC handled the case of Dr Manjula Arora – the GP who served a month’s suspension over a claim she had been promised a laptop – and the GMC’s response to the findings. They talk about what’s going on with patient access to their prospective records online after a week of confusion that’s seen the 1 November deadline when IT...

Emma is joined by a very special guest Professor Sir David Haslam to discuss his new book Side Effects: How Our Healthcare Lost Its Way and How We Fix It . Along with being a GP for over 35 years Sir David has held a number of senior posts including being both chair and president of the Royal College of GPs, president of the BMA and chair of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (N...

This week on the podcast Nick and Emma look at the final report from the House of Commons Health and Social Care committee’s investigation into the future of general practice and explain its findings and key recommendations. They also discuss the former chair of that committee – Jeremy Hunt’s – appointment as chancellor. Emma highlights a really important interview from GPonline with Chris Milliga...

This week Emma is speaking to Dr Devina Maru and Dr Liam Loftus who are both GP trainees and co-founders of The BIg GP Consultation. Devina and Liam set up The Big GP Consultation as a platform for GP trainees and early career GPs to discuss their vision for general practice – and to come up with ideas and solutions for how to address some of the many challenges facing the profession both now...

This week on the podcast Emma and Nick are talking about some new figures showing there has been a surge in vacant GP posts in London, which has left half of the capital’s practices operating with fewer doctors than they need when demand is at an all time high. They also discuss what the RCGP believes needs to happen to boost GP retention and what the latest NHS appointments data tells us about le...

This week on the podcast Emma speaks to Dr Helen Garr, the medical director of NHS Practitioner Health, the NHS service that looks after doctors and dentists - and also other NHS staff - who are experiencing mental ill health. In this conversation Emma and Helen talk about the impact that pressures on the NHS are having on doctors’ wellbeing and how this is affecting GPs in particular. Helen also...

This week the team discusses the government’s latest push to improve access in general practice and some of the problems with the plans. They look at a groundbreaking new system that is being piloted in Devon, which will see work paused for practices facing extreme workload pressures. GP leaders have suggested the system could be rolled out nationwide within a year. And they talk about what plans...

This week Emma speaks with Dr Veronica Grant, a GP in Derbyshire who was until recently the RCGP clinical champion for veterans health, about the healthcare needs of veterans and steps practices can take to better support veterans and military families. This is an interview that was recorded in November 2021. Since we recorded our last podcast we have seen the very sad news about the death of Quee...