Opinion - Page 16

NHS England-led changes to the way we deliver primary care to our care home residents were accelerated due to the Covid pandemic. Deirdre Walsh and Domini James report on their own local feedback.

"There is something immensely grounding about working with the earth and weathering the seasons. Gardening is immersive. It slows you down and can be a humbling experience." Charlotte Sidebotham takes us back to the soil.

We know that information gathering in the medical consultation is through both verbal and non-verbal communication. But there is also that which goes unsaid. Chris Ellis offers his reflections on the importance of accessing that which is unsaid.

We are given reassurances that the MRCGP exams are fair and unbiased. But Laura Emery, an Academic Clinical Fellow at the University of Sheffield, challenges us to ask whether this is correct.

Euan Mackinnon and colleagues sound the alert that COVID-19 lockdowns have reduced head and neck cancer referrals to secondary care, and now primary tumour size is significantly larger at presentation. We need to reverse this worrying trend. Cancer hasn't gone away.

Funding for online consultation services varies across the UK. Kris McLaughlin argues that online consultations will remain a vital part of future general practice, and will in fact improve access for all patients, not just the young or digitally savvy.

Pimary care is undergoing a seismic restructuring such that the nature of the job has changed beyond recognition. Nigel Masters reflects on the role played by the electronic health record which tethers doctors to the computer screen.

During training, we learnt that a doctor either ‘has’ or ‘lacks’ empathy. But we ALL have empathy in various forms. Rabia Aftab shows us how we can learn to have empathetic consultations.

The recent conflict has led to the Palestinian Ministry of Health offices being bombed and the main Palestinain COVID-19 laboratory being targeted also. Our medical colleagues are overwhelmed and struggling for resources. Abdullah Albeyatti gives us a glimpse as to the conditions

The pressure is building up in General Practice and Primary Care. Will things get better? Will things get even worse? Will General Practice have a future as the greatest of all the medical professions? David Mummery gives us his take on problems

The role of a GP is not merely clinical management, but committing to a person-centred approach. Might the Covid-19 pandemic have caused us to lose some of that ‘real’ touch with our patients? Rabia Aftab enters the face to face consultation debate.

Syed Ishaq Husain and his colleagues are thinking globally and acting locally. Here they show us how the UN Sustainability Goals and Materiality Assessments can be used as tools for General Practice.

Martin Benfield shares his particular consulting style, aiming to make the history taking more transparent to the patient, helping the patient to see in advance where the doctor is going.

Covid has changed much. But Darren Puttock and Gailash Panray ask us to consider the possible long term impacts on general practice in terms of recruitment of trainees into the profession.

What is it to be a GP? Many are keen to tell us what extra tasks we should be doing. Sati Heer-Stavert suggests we go back to Plato's theory of forms to reflect on what GPness actually means.

Do you remember the 1990s Defeat Depression Campaign? Do you remember we were told that anti-depressants were safe, effective and non-addictive? Marion Brown reminds us of the sad truths that we have since learned - to our patients' cost.

The upheavals of the last year have meant that trust needs to be managed differently. Joanne Reeve examines the role of both 'scientia' and 'caritas' in the doctor / patient relationship.

The 2020 Lancet Countdown on health and climate change finds that excess red meat consumption is causing nearly a million deaths globally every year. Laura Freeman and Shireen Kassam argue that it is time for family doctors to support patients to remove

Muslims form one third of the Black and Minority Ethnic group in the UK and are ethnically diverse. There is substantive evidence of racial inequalities in healthcare. Jamila Sherif tells about the problem of unconscious bias in Muslim womens' experiences of healthcare.

We become accustomed as GPs to time being broken up into 10-minute blocks. Time, what was once fluid, is now a regimented 'slot', but to the patient the consultation extends beyond its walls. Exploring the perception of time from both the clinician

We have all come across many patients who suffer psychologically, in the last stages of their life, often with a crisis of meaning. Emma Presern reviews the recent evidence on psychedelic therapy.

Lockdown has affected not only patients and doctors, but will affect the future of general practice itself. Maxwell Cooper gives us a heads up.

Anita Campbell brings us up to date with the activities of the RCGP Later Career and Retired Members (LCARM) Group.

The NHS must keep all records until 10 years after a patient's death. With paper records taking up valuable space, retired GP and primary care notes summariser Nigel Masters asks, is it finally time for us to take a 'destructive step' and

Trust is an essential part of the doctor–patient relationship, but how is it formed, nurtured, and perhaps most importantly, broken? Dr Sheena Sharma writes openly on her own experience of trust, both as a GP and a patient, and at an individual

Anxious and depressed people become preoccupied with their stressors. And if you are worried about covid then social media has become a great place to get more worried. Daniel James is getting concerned about the harm that may be caused by social

Wither GP after Covid? For Peter Toon, if healthcare is to flourish as an activity which promotes human flourishing and produces internal goods such as knowledge, skill, joy and love, not subject to a “zero-sum” rule, then an interpretive function must be central.

Research scientists spend an appreciable amount of time considering how they can best collect the data needed for a given study. Perhaps, as we return to some sort of new normal, GPs need to do the same as we evaluate the changes

New NICE guidelines suggest that patients with chronic primary pain should be withdrawn from ‘addictive’ analgesic and benzodiazepine medicines – and that ‘non-addictive’ antidepressants should be the only pharmacological option ‘recommended’. For Marion Brown this scenario is fraught with problems - might it

General Practice after Covid: is there a role for retired GPs in the post-covid era? Ashley Liston says yes!

Pamela Martin listens in to a future GP recruitment interview.....

General Practice after Covid? For Asif Yaseen it means having a few face to face clinics a week with the rest of the appointments being remote.

Working differently has certainly brought some challenges but also some unforeseen opportunities and scope for innovation. Vasumathy Sivarajasingam shares her vision for the future.

There will be many challenges for the NHS once the worst of the pandemic has passed. Judith Dawson suggests that honesty will be the best policy.

What should general practice do to help young people in the post-Covid world? Richard Churchill tells us not to ask ourselves, but to ask them. We should involve young people in the re-design of services.

Richard Armitage sees remote home monitoring for non-communicable diseases including atrial fibrillation, asthma, hypertension and diabetes, as a major opportunity for primary care.

We have all had to endure social distancing for nearly a year now. Peter Aird urges us over the coming months to look to leave social distancing behind – in all its forms. Let’s look to sit down with, and care for,

BJGP Life put out a call for articles on the theme of “General Practice after Covid-19“. During the rest of April we will be publishing the best of them. These articles advocate many different paths, some mutually contradictory, so do read them