Bright Ideas and Innovation

Misfires, propagation, and the neighbourhood layer: a GP view of demand and inequality

General practice sits at the interface between people’s lives and the wider system. It is here that the earliest signs of strain appear. A living‑systems perspective, grounded in the routine work of the consultation, may help...

12 August 2026

5 mins read

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

What we count, and what we miss: a case for measuring GP workload differently

The publisher of the national workload metric is telling us the metric is incomplete -the number that drives contract negotiations, workforce planning, commissioning, and the political conversation about general practice. We're managing a workforce crisis with a yardstick its own producers admit

30 July 2026

6 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion·Research

Psychedelics: think it’s a good idea, doc?

We cannot prescribe psychedelic therapy. We cannot refer to it. We cannot recommend it. But our patients are already seeking it out, often without guidance, and increasingly without us.

2 July 2026

4 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Building neighbourhood care in East and Central Brighton: The health hub

Neighbourhood working often fails: PCNs are asked to deliver it without the space, coordination, or finances needed. The Health Hub was our practical response, showing what is achievable using local assets and PCN staff.

17 June 2026

5 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Building neighbourhood care in East and Central Brighton: Lessons we learned from creating PCN community groups

Our aim was simple. We wanted to provide low-threshold, supportive spaces that helped address the non-medical drivers of poor health. We also wanted to bring patients to our staff, rather than rely on them co-ordinating care and arranging appointments.

10 June 2026

5 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Building neighbourhood care in East and Central Brighton: A structural tension at the heart of PCNs

Their ambition was clear: to create networks of local practices to help tackle the social determinants of health, whilst sharing infrastructure and staff... In practice, that ambition collided with the daily realities of workload, estates, funding constraints and the operational pressures of

4 June 2026

5 mins read

1

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Follow the microbes: A new perspective on health inequalities

Perhaps a new take on the UK’s health inequality gap could be a focus on dysbiosis. We could seek to understand how the microbiome signatures of those living in deprivation compare to those living in affluence, and how that might link to

15 May 2026

7 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Yonder: working rurally, pain-related distress, access and experience, tailored public health messaging

Alex Burrell looks yonder to papers on working rurally, pain-related distress, access and experience, and tailored public health messaging.

11 May 2026

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

From surgery to steering wheel: could driverless cars help the primary care workforce

A self-driving car could allow the commute to become part of the working day, enabling some of this paperwork to be completed on the journey home ... carefully managed to ensure it did not simply result in a longer working day.

16 April 2026

4 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

If AI can ‘reflect,’ what are we assessing?

...if AI can produce the reflection, what exactly are we assessing?

7 April 2026

3 mins read

3

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

AI scribes, memory, and the future of general practice

...an inherent problem when delegating the recoding process to this technology is that it prevents us from remembering our consultations and patients properly. There are several risks associated with this.

6 April 2026

4 mins read

1

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Green Impact for health one year on: Did City and Hackney practices keep going ?

The past year shows that environmental sustainability can survive beyond contractual requirements, but it doesn’t happen automatically.

21 March 2026

2 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

AI in primary care: Secretary, not physician

The difference is crucial. When LLMs are used to structure and summarise known information, they augment human expertise. When they are used to generate new clinical interpretations in high-stakes settings, the limitations of human–AI interaction become more apparent.

20 March 2026

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

AI does not ‘say.’ – Implications of using anthropomorphic language to describe AI use

In meetings where ideation or problem solving is required, how long is it before a colleague exclaims, “I put (our question) into AI and it says this”? Camille Gajria examines the AI-phant in the room.

19 March 2026

2 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Post-Turing Clinical Relationships: how AI is reshaping patient behaviour before the consultation

Medicine is still debating whether artificial intelligence will match or exceed human diagnostic skill. But the most consequential change is already happening elsewhere. It is unfolding quietly in the relationships...

9 March 2026

7 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Primary Care Network Equity Review 2025: making equity real in everyday general practice

The Nottingham West PCN Equity Review 2025 was born out of a simple question: what would equity look like if it were treated as routine clinical business rather than a policy aspiration?

6 March 2026

5 mins read

1

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

How to decarbonise general practice with zero capital

For many practices, the strategy has become "wait and hope": wait for a grant, or hope the energy markets stabilise. But at Wonford Green Surgery in Exeter, we decided that waiting was a risk we could no longer afford.

19 February 2026

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

A reluctant founder: innovation at the Deep End

My hope is modest. No digital tool will fix the NHS or reverse the structural pressures driving burnout. But perhaps we can reclaim small pockets of clarity.

11 February 2026

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·International·Opinion

Meitheal and Umunthu as guides for healthcare

Two concepts—Meitheal from Ireland and Umunthu from Malawi—offer valuable frameworks that could improve healthcare systems for all, including the health workers who work in them.

9 December 2025

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

The art of AI conversation: Why GPs need systems that embrace uncertainty

As these tools become increasingly integrated into our professional and personal lives... We need to move beyond simply quantifying uncertainty and focus on getting large language models to communicate it in a way that fosters empathy, understanding, and ethical awareness.

2 December 2025

4 mins read

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

How do we know if what we know is true?

As GPs, our professional journey is defined by continuous learning, not only gaining knowledge and skills but also in shaping our attitudes and beliefs. Professional practice requires the integrated use of several types of knowledge. John Goldie explains.

6 November 2025

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

A primary care fellowship exploring neurodiversity in the primary care workplace

I wanted to shine a light on the experiences of neurodivergent colleagues in the workplace, not just the challenges they may face, but also the often-overlooked strengths they bring to teams.

3 November 2025

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Clinical·Research

Bridging the gap: the role of a GP with an extended role in streamlining skin cancer referrals

"Urgent suspected skin cancer referrals continue to rise year on year, stretching both general practice and secondary care. Teledermatology has become a vital tool in managing this demand, enabling rapid triage through the submission of clinical and dermoscopic images. Yet its effectiveness

29 September 2025

2 mins read

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Greener General Practice isn’t a luxury – It’s an urgent responsibility

Over the past year, I took part in a sustainability fellowship, with a main focus on implementing the Green Impact for Health Toolkit. I found that the toolkit fostered better patient outcomes, team morale and community engagement, and saved money.

21 August 2025

3 mins read

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

General practice in a ‘Fit for the Future’, net zero NHS

The UK’s Government’s Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England reaffirms the NHS’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2040. We should explore how the Plan’s key proposals interface with the wider goals of healthcare sustainability and climate

18 August 2025

5 mins read

Arts·BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Teaching Medicine with Poetry

The power that this poetic language can have in teaching is often in the endings that provide moral or philosophical reflections on illness which is the “kicker” or message that you want to leave with the student. There is now an extensive literature

8 August 2025

5 mins read

1

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Living Streets Walking Summit: a GP perspective

I first started noticing how little attention we pay to walking a few years ago. That was one of the reasons I attended the Living Streets Walking Summit in 2023. I came away feeling refreshed and reconnected to a bigger, beautiful picture

7 August 2025

4 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Prompt injection attacks: an inherent vulnerability of healthcare AI agents

Richard Armitage worries that a successful attack on an AI agent in general practice could expose entire practice databases of highly sensitive information.

8 July 2025

2 mins read

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation

Embedding sustainability in primary care practice: Reflections on the Green Impact for Health Toolkit in City and Hackney

In 2024-25, 29 GP practices in London's City and Hackney were incentivised to engage with greener practice. Mareeni Raymond hopes that readers will see that greener practice is achievable and that good practice can be shared.

4 July 2025

4 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Accurx Scribe – mousetrap or messiah?

I had the pleasure of attending the Accurx Connects conference, where an announcement was made that Swedish automated scribe company Tandem had partnered up with Accurx to provide an integrated AI ambient scribe for GPs, compatible with electronic patient records systems...

4 June 2025

6 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Clinical·Opinion

Providing support for primary care clinicians after the death of a patient by suicide

Carolyn Chew-Graham and Sohrab Panday discuss how we can better support each other in primary care in the aftermath of a patient's suicide.

28 May 2025

5 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion·Research

Revealing the downsides: the harms of AI to human health

"This article will remind readers of the benefits of these technologies to health care and public health, before drawing attention to the harms of AI to human wellbeing."

21 May 2025

6 mins read

2

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Clerical error, clinical risk, and the automation of primary care

In a data-driven healthcare system, the accuracy of clinical and non-clinical values, as well as diagnostic coding entered into records, is crucial for delivering appropriate and timely care. A cautionary case study inviting audit and discussion.

30 April 2025

5 mins read

Arts·BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation

The Music and Mental Health Project: uniting primary health care globally through music

"The Music and Mental Health Project [aims] to sensitise family physicians, other health professionals and managers, as well as patients and their families, to the transformative power of music as a tool for care in psychosocial suffering."

13 March 2025

7 mins read

1

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

The Stepford scribes: A suspicion of gender bias in healthcare AI

Heidi, Annie, Tali, Suki, Lindy. These were the grammatically feminine names of electronic scribes being presented by a grid of entirely male CEOs or company representatives. Shier Ziser Dawood unmasks some Stepford Scribes.

8 March 2025

3 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·International·Opinion

Ethics Education in a war zone: A role for general practice

We consider teaching medical ethics in conflict zones to be an act of solidarity and a profound commitment to addressing global health inequities. By nurturing ethical reasoning and fostering collaboration, initiatives like this play a crucial role in rebuilding resilient healthcare systems

5 March 2025

3 mins read

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion

Using AI to improve skin cancer detection in primary care: the vision and barriers

Primary care has been identified as the stage in the skin cancer pathway with the greatest potential for the use of AI to increase early detection. Richard Armitage raises some issues.

13 January 2025

4 mins read

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation·Research

An empathy definition at last: exposing the narcissism of small differences

By recognizing the fundamental similarities in our approaches, we can move beyond semantic battles and focus on what truly matters: genuine connection, active listening, and meaningful support for patients.

2 January 2025

4 mins read

Bright Ideas and Innovation·Opinion·Stories

The Watling Walk: Nurturing wellbeing and camaraderie at Watling Medical Centre

The idea was simple: a short walk in the park to clear our heads, engage in light-hearted conversation, and bond with colleagues. Over the years, this practice has not only endured but flourished...

11 December 2024

3 mins read

1

BJGP Long Read·Bright Ideas and Innovation

Climate change and primary care: how to reduce the carbon footprint of your practice

"Reducing the carbon footprint of primary care has the potential to improve the health of our patients and communities, while decreasing workload and saving resources ..." – Michael Naughton and colleagues outline what GPs, partners, and local primary care leaders can do to

5 December 2024

8 mins read

2

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