Andy Wilkins is co-author of a new report called Beyond The Fog: A future for public healthcare which sets out to provide a provocative, ambitious vision for what healthcare might look like in 10 to 15 years’ time. In this fascinating and challenging episode (the first of two) Andy presents the six biggest trends (including technology, future society and systems biology) which he believes will influence changes in healthcare. He looks at the idea of “Always On” healthcare, based on a real-time view of patients and he explains the concept of a Digital Health Coach, effectively an Alexa for the future offering 24 hour advice and support to maintain an individual’s health. Part Two follows next week.

In the third of our series of podcasts looking at pharmacists in general practice Ben talks to Ceinwen Mannall who is the national lead for Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice education at the Centre for Postgraduate Pharmacy Education (CPPE). In this episode she tells Ben about the training available to pharmacists moving into general practice, the impact and value that pharmacists have and tips for practices thinking of employing a clinical pharmacist.

James Morrow is the Chief Exec and Managing Partner of Granta Medical Practices in Sawston, Cambridge. In this episode James tells Ben how the benefits of increased scale have led to a new model for delivering core general practice which has improved access, eased recruitment and developed new and constructive dialogues with secondary care. He touches on the way the practices are involving staff in innovation and working with the local community. Looking to the future he describes a vision where the staff will share ownership of the practice through a Board of Trustees whilst also maintaining the independence of general practice.

Imagine a world where a patient’s first contact with primary care is through a robot. Digital Health Futurist Maneesh Juneja believes that this is a likely scenario for general practice in the near future, if not an inevitable consequence of staff shortages and shifts in public expectation. In this episode he describes how near we are to developing and using “caring robots” and discusses some of the ethical issues as well as the barriers and benefits to digital health.

Regular listeners will remember Paula Wright from Episode 117 when she talked to Ben about GP learning groups. In this episode Paula (who is a GP in the North East of England and GP tutor for Newcastle, Health Education England – North East team) highlights the retained GP scheme, designed to keep GPs who are at risk of leaving, in the workforce. Paula explains how the scheme works, the financial support for both GPs and practices, the application process and much more.

Social prescribing is one of the Ten High Impact Changes from the GP Forward View. But what is it? How does it work and who can benefit? In this week’s podcast Ben speaks with Nick Sharples from training consultancy DNA Insight. Nick explains how his involvement in social prescribing evolved from his company’s focus on active signposting (listen to our previous podcast with Nick here). He also explains the three factors which will enable social prescribing to work best, how it is likely to evolve and much more.

Here is the second part of our expert panel discussion considering the impact of millennials on general practice. In this part the panel considers the impact of the differing needs of millennial patients, how disruption and innovation will continue to influence and whether, ultimately, millennials pose an opportunity or a threat.

If you missed Part One you can find it here.

The panel consists of:

Surina Chibber: a GP and founder of My Locum Manager

Aisha Malik: a GP, social media strategist and founder of Doctors in Business

Mayur Vibhuti: a GP and Visiting Reader in Medical Leadership at Canterbury and Christchurch University

Here is the first part of our fourth expert panel discussion. This time we are looking at what will be the impact of millennials on general practice. In this first part the panel considers what a millennial is, what is driving them to be different to the older generation and how the system might need to change to accommodate this new generation.

Part Two will follow next week.

This time Ben is joined by:

Surina Chibber: a GP and founder of My Locum Manager

Aisha Malik: a GP, social media strategist and founder of Doctors in Business

Mayur Vibhuti: a GP and Visiting Reader in Medical Leadership at Canterbury and Christchurch University

This is the second in our short summer series of pharmacy-focussed podcasts. In this episode Ben talks to Duncan Petty who runs Prescribing Support Services, one of the largest suppliers of pharmacists to general practice. Duncan, who was one of the first clinical pharmacists to be employed in general practice, explains the prerequisites necessary for pharmacists to work well in general practice, the benefits they bring, how at-scale working impacts on them and how they can deliver prescribing savings. He also explains his vision for the future of primary care based pharmacy.

In the first of two pharmacy-focussed podcasts we talk to Ravi Chal who is a pharmacist and founder of Future Pharmacy, a company which is developing an app to work as a clinical decision support system for pharmacists. In this podcast Ravi explains how the app will work; offering doctors and pharmacists both a dosage calculator and access to the four largest pharmaceutical databases via the user’s phone. Ravi also has a company called Locum Passport; an automated document wallet for locums which facilitates the transfer of personal information between agencies. Ravi also considers how technology will develop within the NHS in the future.