Ben welcomes back podcast favourite, Sheinaz Stansfield for the first time in a while. Sheinaz is a partner at Oxford Terrace and Rawling Road Medical Group, director of transformation for Birtley and Central Gateshead PCN and she continues to work with the GP transformation team at NHS England. Sheinaz shares her experience regarding ‘Better health at work’ and how the involvement has improved mental health and wellbeing within her own workforce. The Better Health at Work Award recognises the efforts of employers in the North East and Cumbria in addressing health issues within the practice.

Introduction (0:09)

Thoughts on the The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF).. (0:46)

Core challenges behind looking after our staff.. (1:26)

Where did Sheinaz start in terms of improving mental health for staff? (2:24)

Challenges within the workforce.. (3:46)

Better Health at work (5:53)

What's involved in Better Health at work? (6:33)

Action plan.. (7:26)

HR processes.. (8:14)

Examples of changes within Sheinaz’s practice.. (10:22)

Importance of listening to staff.. (11:04)

Covid impact within the practice.. (12:37)

Continuing with new changes? (13:32)

Feedback from staff.. (15:14)

Impact on the practice? (16:13)

Costings.. (17:06)

Thoughts on Health & Wellbeing coaches? (18:02)

Sheinaz shares her advice.. (19:16)

How to get in touch & where to find further information (22:06)

Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles and the model for improvement

For further questions for Sheinaz please contact Ben Gowland here. 

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

This week, Ben is joined by Najib Seedat & Andy Pow. They met at the end of April 2023 to discuss the new 2023/2024 contract that has been imposed on general practice for the 5th and final year of the 5 year deal. They share their thoughts on PCNs & General Practice working together, how it works in terms of funding and how PCNs and general practices can get the balance right. They deliberate the reintroduced requirements for GP’s to declare their earnings above a threshold, how this could affect General Practices and what this requirement is trying to achieve. Andy kindly finishes the episode by sharing some advice for practices to help mitigate some cost pressures. 

Introduction (0:09)

Thoughts on the imposed terms… (0:40)

Impact on practices? (2:53)

Investment through PCNs.. (5:40)

Introduced access changes.. (8:48)

Insights into the General Practice access recovery plan.. (10:40)

Redirection of care.. (12:31)

Requirements for GP’s to declare earnings.. (13:45)

Potential consequences of not declaring earnings..  (18:27)

Calculations of earnings.. (20:15)

Reaction to this year's contract..  (21:56)

Tips to help mitigate cost pressures (26:22)

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

In this month’s Practice Index sponsored panel episode, Ben is reunited with Nicola Davies and Robyn Clark. Ben, Nicola, and Robyn discuss the new contractual requirements and how they will impact practices moving forward. Nicola and Robyn look at the year ahead and what their priorities will be during this tough time. They touch on some difficult subjects such as underfunding, pay and taking care of the staff's wellbeing within the practices. Robyn finishes the podcast on a positive note by sharing some ideas for the future and having patients help to save general practices. 

Introduction (0:09)

How is life in General Practice at the moment? (0:50)

Robyn & Nicola share their  views on the new contract.. (1:43)

Funding... (2:52)

Patients' expectations... (4:52)

Disconnect between the messages to the public & practices.. (6:14)

The year ahead.. (8:15)

Introduction of cloud based telephony.. (9:34)

Inflation compared to pay rises.. (12:01)

Collective action or practice by practice basis? (14:08)

Publishing salaries above £159k.. (14:56)

Thoughts on the Hewitt review.. (18:53)

Thoughts on the future.. (20:23)

To visit the Practice Index website, click here or contact James Dillon here.

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

In this episode Ben is joined by GPs Caroline Baker & Lavan Baskaran, both looking to find ways to improve their GPs lifestyle through triage. Rapid Health uses intelligent software to assess patient needs at first contact, to then navigate them to the right care – all based on the individual practices rules and availability. Ben discusses Rapid Health with both Caroline & Lavan, who are at different stages of introducing Rapid Health into their practices. They share their personal experience with Rapid Health, how patients and staff have reacted to it since it’s been introduced and how it’s working in their practices so far.

Introduction (0:09)

Experiences with Rapid Health so far? (0:54)

Personalising Rapid Health (5:16)

Navigating and prioritising patients.. (6:32)

How to organise routes for patients in your practices? (10:41)

Patients' reaction to Rapid Health? (12:18)

Staffs’ reaction to Rapid Health? (13:48)

How did you initially introduce Rapid Health? (Lavan) (15:03)

Shift in percentage of urgent appointments? (18:38)

PCN access plan.. (22:27)

Is previous experience making people nervous for Rapid Health? (25:25)

Were there initial hurdles? (26:53)

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

Today, Ben is joined by both Conor Burke and Simon Abrams from Urgent Health UK. UHUK is a long-standing membership organisation, committed to providing the highest quality of care for patients. UHUK’s members provide out-of-hours and clinical assessment services whilst sharing expertise and knowledge amongst the members, as well as benchmarking their quality against each other. Ben, Conor & Simon discuss the recent changes, how they have affected their members and the potential tension it could cause between members and General Practices. Conor and Simon kindly share their advice for PCNs and Practices who want to create partnerships in the future. 

Introduction (0:09)

UHUKs organisations (0:52)

Organisations involvement (2:21)

Simon's role (3:29)

Have the changes impacted UHUKs members? (4:47)

Potential tension between UHUK members and General Practices (5:45)

Thoughts around same day access.. (9:00)

Advice for PCNs & General Practices who want to create partnerships? (15:10)

Could future changes help partnerships grow? (16:59)

What makes partnerships difficult? (20:24)

Visit the UHUK website here.

Conor and Simon can be contacted using the following email address’ [email protected] & [email protected].

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

This week Ben is joined by Dr Ollie Hart. Ollie has been a GP for over 20 years and is a clinical director of Heeley Plus PCN. Alongside this, Ollie is a director of a health coaching training company called  Peak Health Coaching. Peak Health Coaching deliver PCI accredited health coach training and have trained hundreds of health coaches across the UK. During the podcast  Ben and Ollie discuss how health coaching could help practices and PCNs improve health outcomes. In addition Ollie talks about his interest in pain management and speaks more about how he got into the health coaching world. Ollie shares information about the upcoming national conference he is holding on May 16th, what attendees can expect and how you can purchase tickets to the conference.

Introduction (0:09)

How Ollie first got into Health Coaching.. (0:58)

Applying Health Coaching into the GP role.. (1:55)

What works well? (2:50)

Ollie’s examples.. (4:01)

Is this approach practical in General Practice? (5:08)

Impacts ARR’s have made.. (6:17)

Ollie's tips for GPs with health coaches in place (7:11)

Are health coaches getting the right patients? (8:22)

What patients would benefit from health coaching? (9:15)

Is weight loss a good focus for health coaches? (10:17)

Thoughts on GP’s current model..  (11:14)

Ollie’s approach to health coaching in his PCN.. (13:01)

Resistance to health coaching.. (14:44)

Peak health coaching.. (16:36)

Who have you trained so far? (17:47)

Peak Health Coaching’s first national conference.. (18:39)

Further information about the conference.. (19:29)

Ben & Ollie discuss their views on health coaching.. (20:17)

For more information on the conference, visit their website here.

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

In this month’s Practice Index sponsored panel episode Ben is joined by panel regular Robyn Clark,  and HR expert Susi O’Brien. They discuss what life is like in practices now following the GP contract update and reflect on the potential future pressures for practices. They consider the funding that is going to be provided, what the time ahead could look like for GP practices and what changes may need to be made. Susi explains how to decide the best options for the practices and how to manage  changes through open engagement with employees. Robyn and Susi share their concerns around the new contract and how practices will cope with the new requirements alongside limited funding. 

Introduction (0:09)

Life in practices following the GP contract letters (0:51)

Funding for practices.. (1:38)

Effects of the funding (3:49)

What changes are practices considering? (4:51)

How to go about introducing the changes? (6:00)

Openness within the GP practices (9:00)

How to start thinking about your options? (10:45)

Changing employee terms & conditions.. (12:25)

Making redundancies fair.. (14:59)

Lessons learnt from previous experience? (16:36)

Legal perspective around GP’s striking? (18:00)

What action is needed? (19:07)

Last words of advice.. (20:52)

To visit the Practice Index website, click here or contact James Dillon here.

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

In this week's episode, Ben is joined by guest, Dr Richard Wood, co-CEO of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire LMC. Richard discusses his day-to-day role, directing the teams which execute the LMC’s agenda. He shares his thoughts behind the Integrated Care System and what the move means for General Practice and also the thinking behind the GP Leadership groups. Richard took over as co-CEO in 2018, on the podcast he explains what he felt was important at the time, what route he went down and how the groups look today. Finally, Richard shares the lessons he has learnt along the way and any advice he has for others on the same journey.

Introduction (0:09)

Richard Woods day to day role (0:25)

Place based Leadership routes within an Integrated Care System... (0:45)

The thinking behind needing GP Leadership groups (2:09)

LMC or system request? (3:05)

Is there a potential for LMC to grow? (4:21)

What locations are you connected with currently? (5:59)

Tell us about the process you went through… (7:32)

Any surprises from the principles? (9:36)

What route did you go down? (10:10)

How to prevent the smaller groups from being isolated? (11:29)

PCN CD’s… (12:41)

How does funding work? (13:51)

What is involved in the meetings? (16:15)

What does success look like within the groups? (18:02)

How do the groups work together to have an influence? (19:10)

Dr Woods' advice.. (20:10)

Final words.. (21:16)

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

Ben is joined once again by NHS pensions expert, Paul Gordon. Paul returns to the podcast to discuss new changes to the NHS pension scheme. Ben and Paul last spoke in December 2022 prior to the consultation taking place. The consultation completed at the end of January this year and as of the 7th March feedback has been shared. Paul communicates the outcome from the consultation and explains the proposed changes in relation to the flexibilities around retirement, tax charges and the impact of the changes on staff.  

Introduction (0:09)

Consultation outcome.. (0:39)

Introducing new flexibilities to retirement.. (1:36)

How does this make things easier? (2:54)

Pensions and a full salary income.. (3:32)

Tax implications.. (4:56)

Lifetime allowance.. (8:02)

Total rewards statement.. (10:51)

How to calculate the best outcome for you? (13:11)

Changes to 24 hour retirement.. (16:39)

Risks in single handed practices and small practices.. (19:20)

Effects of inflation.. (22:06)

Widening the access to pension scheme (25:32)

When will the changes be applied? (27:41)

Accessing your Total Rewards Statement

To contact Paul directly: [email protected]

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.

Dr George Gavriel, who is partner at the Swan Practice and Clinical Director of the Swan PCN, & Emma Vye who is Operations Manager at both Swan Practice and Swan PCN are guests on the podcast this week. Their practice is a single practice PCN and they join Ben to discuss their journey of moving into being stand alone. Ben gets an understanding of how the single practice and PCN works in terms of their resources, clinical delivery and management team. They discuss the ‘Gold card’ approach for clients who can be seen on the same day through a ‘same day service’ system. They reflect on how it has benefited them being an independent PCN and why others may or may not look into doing the same.

Introduction (0:09)

Where they’re located.. (0:25)

Single Practice PCN (0:41)

What was the rationale for you to work alone? (1:14)

Resistance from commissioners.. (2.27)

Benefits of being a single Practice & PCN? (3:06)

The shift into being a single Practice, Emma's perspective (4:21)

How does it work? (4:44)

How many sites do you have? (6:07)

Issues of allocating staff.. (7:26)

The fuller report.. (7:57)

Challenges of setting up the same day service? (9:38)

Staffing of the same day service.. (11:54)

Deploying ARS staff into the same day service.. (13:37)

Gold card.. (13:58)

Impact of the PCN & Practice (15:04)

Reflections of being a single Practice PCN.. (16:51)

Value of being independent? (19:24)

Contact details.. (22:05)

Contact George directly on [email protected].

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.