Imperial College London Primary Care

Dr Sonia Kumar has been appointed as the new Head of Undergraduate Primary Care Teaching the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London. She will take up her post in February 2013. Dr Kumar has worked as a GP in South London for the past 11 years. Her academic interests started about the same time, whilst working as a GP Assistant, at GKT Medical School where she taught on a number of undergraduate courses. This led her to study for a Masters in Primary Care at Kings College, which she completed in 2004 with a Distinction. Her Masters dissertation looked at the effectiveness of PBL as a teaching tool in medical schools. She then joined the London Deanery 8 years ago working as a local Programme Director for Kings and then 3 years ago was appointed as a Pan London Director for Quality and Innovation. She has been involved in teaching for the Deanery's Faculty Development Unit and with GP recruitment and assessment Panels. In November 2012, she join...

There are significant variations in the quality of primary care in London, according to a new report commissioned by NHS London from The King’s Fund and Imperial College London . The report was featured by a number of media outlets, including the BBC and Pulse . General practice in London faces unique challenges - its population is more transient and diverse, with hundreds of different first languages spoken. It is also growing faster than elsewhere in England. While on some measures Londoners are healthier than people from other parts of the country, widespread inequalities exist, with life expectancy varying by up to nine years and infant mortality three years between different parts of the capital. The report highlights some examples of excellent performance - for example, some deprived parts of the capital have the highest rates of child immunisation in the country, and London practices have made good progress in adopting new information technology. However, Londoners also repo...

Lizzie Cecil, who has been working within PCPH since October 2010, joined the Child Health Unit in September and has embarked on a PhD. Her research will look at reducing unplanned hospital admissions in children. The aim of the project is to investigate the factors associated with the rise in admissions: I s need, a rise in chronic and/or infectious disease dictating the trend or have other factors such as access and health seeking behaviour increased in influence over time?