Blog

GP trainees Dr Ree'Thee Bhatt and Dr Devina Maru share their experiences of working in health policy roles and outline why an understanding of policymaking is crucial to enabling clinicians to influence change in the health and care system.

What might help a wider range of professionals take on leadership roles in primary care? Kiran Chauhan and Beccy Baird suggest starting with thinking through issues around expectations, support and practical constraints.

Loreen Chikwira explores how better listening, collaborative working with minority ethnic women and better support for link workers can improve how social prescribing supports migrant women.

Social prescribing link workers are on the front line of the fight for population health. They know it, but need more support to deliver on the promise of their roles, as Laura Lamming explores.

Oliver Standing, Director of Collective Voice, and colleagues from the Alliance Group, explore the opportunities offered by England’s new drugs strategy, as well as the challenges that lie ahead.

Integrated care systems are intended to be part of a new way of working in health and care based on principles of partnership and collective responsibility. Chris Naylor asks whether this original vision is already at risk and what making a reality of it would involve.

As demand for primary care services continues to grow, Martha Martin, GP trainee, explores how investment in improving the social determinants of health and time to develop relationships in multidisciplinary teams would help her to better support her patients.

Partnership working can be transformative – if it works well. Here we share two techniques, observed as part of the Healthy Communities Together programme, that can help in forming healthy partnerships.

Angela Fell, Director of Northern Heart and Soul in Wigan, outlines why we should move beyond person-centred services to a community-centred approach in order to transform people's health and wellbeing.

Listening to people and learning from their experiences offers the opportunity to change care for the better. Imelda Redmond, National Director of Healthwatch England, explains why involving users will give a better, bigger picture of how integration is working.

To make the most of the opportunities offered by integrated care systems and local place-based working, partnership-working needs to be about more than just relationships between organisations. Now is the time to embrace community power and strengthen community engagement and involvement, says Chris Naylor.

Aamena Bharmal reports on the findings from the 2020 survey of GP trainees – and is optimistic about the opportunities available in primary care.

Data, funding and workforce – if the government wants its proposed reforms to the MHA to create change these system-wide enablers are as important as individual changes to legislation. Helen Gilburt consider the issues.

As we reach the one-year anniversary of the start of lockdown in the United Kingdom, Richard Murray outlines how a whole-system response will best support staff and patients and help to tackle inequalities.

Working out how to embed new roles into general practice teams will be crucial to staff recruitment and retention. Beccy Baird considers the opportunities and challenges remote working offers for achieving this.

Primary care adopted digital technology at pace during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Beccy Baird reflects on research looking at why and how this was possible – and how positive changes can be sustained.

Helen Gilburt shares her research into how mental health and social care professionals make decisions around whether to detain people with mental disorders under the Mental Health Act or the Mental Capacity Act – Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. Her research uncovered a range of understandings and misunderstandings which impact on practice.

As the Covid-19 vaccine rollout gathers pace, Beccy Baird considers what has allowed general practice to meet the demands of this ambitious programme, and how community partnerships will be key to reaching those in need.

What have we learnt from our work supporting the development of primary care networks across England? Beccy Baird, Kiran Chauhan and Tricia Boyle share their learning about what groups find useful and pose some questions for PCN leaders and clinical commissioning groups who are thinking about development needs.