Integrated neighbourhoods are a collaborative effort of health and social care providers, as well as voluntary/non-statutory organisations, which aim to improve the health and wellbeing of residents and service users. Afsana Bhuiya, Seher Kayicki and Faha Iqbal outline what we know about
Clinical codes are of course created by the machines’ human lackeys, but sometimes betray a way of thinking that is hard to relate to. Ben Hoban muses on how we record clinical consultation data.
The term 'pathway' is commonly used within the NHS to describe the sequence of steps and services involved in a patient's care. While ‘pathway’ may be familiar and well-understood among healthcare professionals, this is far from the case with the public.
So, doctors... are learning to be afraid of uncertainty, ordering ever more tests and prescribing more and more, to try – often in vain – to be sure... But where does that leave Patient Earth?
"... machines will soon become superior to doctors in all domains of health care, where the Moravec paradox will cease to apply."
Variety is a selling point for the profession itself (challenging and interesting) and for the resources needed to do it well (GPs are ‘best’ placed to do many great things but need time and money invested). Andrew Papanikitas introduces this month's Life
A recent warning from the UK Health Security Agency suggests that London is at risk of a major measles outbreak due to poor measles vaccination coverage. What does this mean for general practice?
The service I work in was set up by the local Aboriginal community, because they were being poorly served by the health services that existed at the time. Part of this was that the options offered seemed to operate on a narrow,
All of us in the NHS want to help people, we wouldn’t be here otherwise. But, and I only use diabetes as an example, how much of our work now inadvertently keeps a proportion of our patient’s sick?
In the summer before COVID-19 it the UK, I read three works of fiction (one after another) that changed my perspective on the world and our place in it: The Wall, The World according to Anna, and The Ministry for Future
In a podcast recorded by the Medical Republic, Jens Sondergaard outlined six main reasons it’s great to work in Danish general practice. Nada Khan weighs up the evidence for moving to Denmark.
Richard Armitage argues that, in three well-defined contexts, clinical decision-making should be delegated to AI systems either today or in the very near future.
'Caring for carers is everyone’s business, though general practitioners (and we use our words wisely) are perhaps best placed to identify and support carers -more so than other health professionals.' argue Helen Walker and Clare Gerada
If we want to avoid missing significant diagnoses, and tigers, we cannot examine every symptom or blade of grass exhaustively, but we can cultivate an openness to the sort of cognitive dissonance that points to unrecognised danger. Ben Hoban explains
'More of the same won’t fix general practice.' So, what should we be doing differently? The Lazarus project is designed to take GPs out of ‘usual care’ to a different space for professional practice ...
Introducing a temporary weight loss fix using GLP-1 agonists without consideration of the wider implications and long-term plan is quite frankly, an absurdly short-sighted idea, argues Elizabeth Dapre
What can be done? These are five low-cost steps to take forward a modern version of the family doctor.
In both primary and secondary care, we see firsthand the concerning, growing impact of mould on the health and wellbeing of our patients. These cases are a stark reminder of how significantly more needs to be done to combat the devastating impact
GPs allow patients to make harmful choices – thereby affording primacy to autonomy at the expense of beneficence – when that harm accrues only to the individual making such choices. But if your future self is a different person, does that mean
What are GP trainers' thinking? Saul Miller gives us a glimpse.
Our relationships with patients are more than just transactional, but they do not need to be based on affection or necessarily on duration. A good doctor-patient relationship is simply one that enables both parties to bridge the gap between them, and it
Hannah Milton discusses...a gradual withdrawal from social life starting in mid-teens, often with school refusal alongside an altered sleep pattern, gaming or social media addiction and a restricted and unhealthy diet with a total lack of exercise.
Most practices at some point may find themselves in a tricky situation of having to look for a new practice manager. Adnan Saad shares some starting points. Additional insights are welcome in the comments!
The Metropolitan police chief, Sir Mark Rowley, has said that his officers will not attend calls for mental health incidents from 31 August 2022 unless there’s an immediate threat to life. Nada Khan investigates the key issues in this national scheme its
So what we need is the invention of a ‘new category’ of General Practitioner. David Mummery sets out his manifesto for the future general practitioner. Discussion welcome!
Today it is for you and your colleagues to rebuild and sustain those relationships. You have a wonderful tool for doing this in your surgery’s website. Use it to tell your patients how your surgery works.
The wolves in the forest that frighten human beings are now at last being accurately named: poverty, homelessness, hunger, unemployment, domestic abuse, adverse childhood experiences. Humans like sheep have a basic need to feel safe. They can’t function well until that need
So, as the ‘choose well’ guide tells us, they have to judge whether a condition is ‘serious’, a fall is ‘minor’, an emergency is ‘real’, an injury ‘non life-threatening’, and care is needed ‘urgently’.
"We regularly face a level of demand that we don’t have the resources to meet. We gradually downgrade our aspiration from thriving to functioning to surviving, and our only options look like pushing through or getting out. Simply going on as we
A recent BBC Panorama ‘expose’ of private ADHD clinics suggests that some online providers are over-diagnosing ADHD following inadequate clinical assessments. Patients are increasingly turning to private providers both out of pocket and through right-to--choose arrangements, and ultimately, GPs may be asked
"I predict that, by June 2025, all GPs will be using some form of LLM-powered co-pilot in their day-to-day practice ... Used (and regulated) correctly, these tools will enhance patient care, improve GP working conditions, and relieve pressures on general practice in
With recent polling in the UK putting Labour significantly ahead it seems likely that they will form our next government. It is sensible, therefore, to pay close attention to Labour policy suggestions for the NHS.
Nada Khan finds two hidden 'shelves' of GPs who might bolster the primary care workforce: the shelf with locum GPs, and the shelf of academic GPs. What is the contribution to the GP workforce of these shelves of GPs, and how might
Can we still reasonably describe ourselves as generalists, doing a bit of everything, or are we on the road to re-branding ourselves as specialists in primary care?
General practice can play a major role in assisting in raising awareness and supporting primary prevention, early identificationand intervention of domestic abuse, argues Vasumathy Sivarajasingam
The people factors are the strongly positive aspects of the job. But the logistical working conditions must improve for the future of the specialty to be sustainable. Five academic clinical fellows itemise the issues and set out a manifesto for change.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the NHS, and it is timely to consider the post-1948 story of general practice, and what we can learn from the past to make the future more propitious than it appears. Edin
Yet, from speaking to other women with this condition, I have learnt that it is often their GP that they consult with first, asking: why are my periods lighter since my miscarriage? why have my periods stopped? Could something be wrong, as
Fourteen years ago, I watched the drama-documentary-animation hybrid film: The Age of Stupid. This is set in a climate-ravaged 2055, and features a last-surviving human who has been entrusted to archive human records. He is reflecting on news footage demonstrating the devastation
ChatGPT threatens to significantly harm the educational attainment, as well as the intellectual life, of students of medicine and the subjects that compliment it. This poses a serious threat to the ability of such students to deliver safe and effective care once
Charlie Massey, Chief Executive of the GMC, tells us ‘there is no ready-made batch of GPs waiting to be plucked off the shelf to ease the pressures on the workforce...’ In the bookcase of doctors coming to the rescue of general practice,
