What happens when Practices close for training?
Have you ever wondered what happens GP practices close for training?
Every month or so, surgeries close for an afternoon. Often, this is a chance for the teams to pause, take a breath, and make sure everyone is up to date with what’s happening in their practice. This might involve learning new processes, reviewing service levels, or carrying out some of the mandatory training staff must do.
Last Tuesday though, for the second time, teams from the neighbouring practices in Gosforth and Jesmond got together for an away day (well, afternoon!)
Taking Stock
The Gosforth and Jesmond Health (GJH) network team organised the event for the practices in our two Primary Care Networks.
Dr Guy Clements talked us through the growth of PCNs, the new specialists like Clinical Pharmacists and Social Prescribers we’ve brought into practices, along with the development of the home visiting service, Same Day Access Clinics and Enhanced Access appointments at evenings and weekends.
As you know, General Practice is very busy, and the chance to take stock and refresh our minds about all the services and options available to patients is helpful. We’ll be sharing case studies about some of this work in the next few weeks.
Then, we split into smaller groups for discussions about network projects and services and talks from guest speakers.
New Projects
One of the areas where PCNs take the lead is early cancer diagnosis. In particular, encouraging all patients to take up the screening tests offered for common, preventable diseases like cervical, bowel and lung cancers.
Dr Sarah Rae was joined by Emma Shaw from the Northern Cancer Alliance to talk through uptake and diagnosis.
We talked about lung cancer, the clinical signs and symptoms, and routes for diagnosis. One stat that really stood out from an audit of cancer cases across the area was that 14% of new lung cancer diagnoses were in people who had never smoked.
Check back during October when we’ll be focusing on lung cancer, particularly screening, symptoms and smoking.
Kathryn McHarg, one of our Social Prescribing team talked about her project to increase the uptake of cervical screening.
Cervical cancer is 99.8% preventable, and the NHS has pledged to eliminate it by 2040. Kathryn’s project looks at what we, as practice and network teams, can do to encourage more people to get screened.
One step was the launch of an information hub about cervical screening which you can find on all practice websites, and here at gosforthjesmondhealth.co.uk/lives.
Kathryn is also keen to hear from people who have or haven’t been screened to understand their experiences, concerns and perspectives. If you want to be involved in the cervical screening project, you can sign up at the bottom of the information hub.
In another session, Paediatric Nurse Practitioner Catherine Leonard talked about the pilot of her Wheeze Clinic.
Catherine has brought specialist expertise about asthma in children and young people into General Practice. In the clinic, Catherine helps people to better manage their asthma through education, coaching inhaler technique, and producing personalised action plans.
The background to the project was research showing that, despite the NHS announcing a focus on asthma in 2014, the number of deaths from asthma has actually gone up by 25% over the last ten years.
We’ll be sharing an in-depth case study about the Wheeze Clinic in the coming weeks.
Guest Speakers
We were also fortunate enough to be joined by some excellent guest speakers.
Anti-racism charity Show Racism the Red Card, delivered an interactiver session called Bias in the Brain. It was a valuable opportunity to challenge our unconscious bias and reflect on advantage and privilege, and how we can ensure race equality and equality for all protected characteristics.
In another fascinating session, motivational speaker and chair of the Children’s Heart Unit Fund charity Ivan Hollingsworth discussed managing stress and improving our well-being.
Ivan explored the importance of connection with other people, self-care and we can thrive, look after our well-being, and manage stress in the face of daily challenges.
While our regular in-practice sessions aren’t always like this, we hope it gives patients a bit of a glimpse as to what happens behind the scenes and how we’re always working to improve the health and well-being of patients.