Welcome to the latest episode of Talking Meds and the Presqipp podcast, engaging conversations about medicines-related dilemmas. Today, your host Jonathan Underhill, Medicines Clinical Adviser at Presqipp, talks to Professor Neal Maskrey about his new book, Rebalancing Medicine.

Neal was a GP in Yorkshire for 20 years and continues to work extensively supporting postgraduate training with GP Trainers and their registrars. He then worked for North Yorkshire Health Authority developing primary care, was an early editor of Clinical Evidence (BMJ Publications), and then spent 14 years as a director of the National Prescribing Centre and Programme Director of the Medicines and Prescribing Centre at NICE. He still has a chair as Visiting Professor of Evidence-informed decision making at Keele University where Jonathan and Neal still collaborate on innovative stuff on shared decision making such as us using avatars to allow people to hone their consultation skills with feedback in a safe space (as its a computer it doesn’t have any feelings – not yet they don’t anyway!)

Jonathan and Neal discuss what influenced him to write his book, what the key themes are as well as the sources, experiences and stories that influenced the writing. They then provide some food for thought as to the future of healthcare, what this means for NICE and other organisations, and how individual healthcare professionals can make sure they are prepared for the future.

Resources mentioned in this episode include:

• Review of Rebalancing Medicine from Dr Richard Lehman
• How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman
• Era 3 for Medicine and Health Care by Don Berwick
• Youtube video of Keynote presentation of this
• Applying the time needed to treat to NICE guidelines on lifestyle interventions - Minna Johansson and colleagues  
• Population-health impact of new drugs recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in England during 2000–20: a retrospective analysis – Huseyin Naci et al.

Useful related resources from PrescQIPP:
Information Mastery face to face Workshops in March and April 2025

A new episode of Talking Meds will be available every other Friday.
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