Imperial College London Primary Care

Resources on brief physical activity guidance for older adults in isolation for patients and clinicians Giving Older Adults Brief Physical Activity Advice. Given current clinical pressures, clinicians dealing with older adults will likely have limited time, and this adapted 3As model may provide a possible structure to clinician’s advice. Ask: Permission to discuss physical activity as something that could make a difference to health and wellbeing Advise /Explain/Explore: Ask how they physical activity levels have changed and what they could do to increase it?  Agree: A plan considering what they will do, how they will do it. Try to ensure that it includes some cardiovascular, muscle and bone strengthening activities including resistance exercises, balance and co-ordination elements to the plan. Cardiovascular : Ideally the individual should be slightly out of breath when performing the activity. Aim to build to 150 minu...

Childhood obesity is a growing problem in the UK.   Data estimate that over 1 in 5 reception children are overweight or obese, rising to over 1 in 3 children by the time they reach year 6 1   .   Furthermore it has long been recognised that obese children are likely to remain obese into adulthood 2 and obesity is associated with multiple serious chronic health conditions 3 .   Obesity has a significant impact on not only the population’s health but also the NHS, with an estimated spend of £6.1 billion on obesity-related ill health in 2014-15 4 .   Governing bodies including Public Health England have produced guidelines to encourage healthier eating which include reduction of sugar 5 .   More recently the outgoing Chief Medical Officer for England suggested a ban on consumption of food and drink on public transport to tackle the obesity epidemic 6 .   In response to the link between sugar consumption and weight gain, artificially sweetened...

’Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’’ It was after squeezing into another packed London tube on a Friday evening that I saw the email ping into my mobile phone. ‘Cumbrian and North Yorkshire GP Trainee Fellowships for ST3s.’ The opportunity to transfer your training for 4-6 months in one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, a quick google of Saltburn- by –the- Sea and I was instantly sold. I transferred my training from ( Imperial GP Speciality Training Scheme- Marylebone Health Centre) to ( Durham and Tees Valley VTS- Huntcliff Surgery, Saltburn) in April, and have loved every minute. My Practice Huntcliff surgery was a stone’s throw from the beach, and a short drive to the breath taking North Yorkshire Moors. Work life balance is emphasised by the practice and I have been able to find time to join a running club, Tai Chi and walk every day. I’m cycling to home visits and enjoying a much more outdoor lifestyle. I’m also really enjoying working in a close k...

Our Annual Teachers Conference this year took place on the 8th of June at Charing Cross. It was a truly inspirational day and for those delegates (and Department staff) who have been to many ATCs, it was one that will stick in the memory as one of the biggest and best ever! This year’s theme was “teach one, train one, keep one”, focussing on inspiring the next generation of future GPs and ensuring that being involved in undergraduate education can help to futureproof your practice. The day was kicked off by Sonia Kumar, celebrating her 5th ATC as our Director, making us think about the challenges of complexity within the specialty of General Practice and explaining how we as a community team are meeting the challenge educationally. As always, her personal story of her father’s navigation of the complex care system illustrated the message of the conference so vividly. Our keynote speaker, NB Medical’s own Dr Simon Curtis delivered a tour de force in his address to conference. His presen...

We had the pleasure of welcoming Prof Hirsh from Harvard Medical School to Imperial College this month. Prof Hirsh is a world leader in Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships (LICs), which are a new design of medical education which move away from block rotational placements to a placements which are integrated across specialties with the common thread of continuity of the students with supervisors, peers and patients. In the department we now have two longitudinal courses, the 10 – week Medicine in the Community Apprenticeship in Year 3, and the Integrated Clinical Apprenticeship in year 5. These courses have been designed and adapted using the literature base of LIC, and following our visit last year to Harvard. During his visit, Prof Hirsh joined us in discussions on how we are developing new curricular ideas around LIC and how the learning from these courses are also helping to shape the ongoing curriculum review in the Medical School. We were also delighted to be able to p...

Thanks to Dr. Maham Stanyon and her connection with the UK-Japan GP Network, I was delighted to visit Imperial Primary Care Department in April. As a Japanese GP trainee being exposed to primary care in the UK, every single day was filled with surprise and I would like to share some of my thoughts on your newsletter. Abington Medical Centre/Crown Street Surgery This was my first occasion to visit UK surgeries and I was amazed by how differently we work as GPs in the UK and in Japan. I was very impressed by how GPs in the UK act as strict gatekeepers working “under pressure not to refer” and how the flow of all the patients is tightly controlled under appointment systems. This is totally different from Japan where patients have choices to visit GPs or any specialty clinics any time without making an appointment. I imagine that being in charge of thousands of patients at each surgery must be an enormous workload for all the GPs in the UK but I could see that this is made possibl...

But this time the school came to us…. We are three final year Imperial College medical students who have just completed our elective in medical education with the Imperial College Primary Health Care Department. Throughout our time one of the concepts we focused on was social accountability; how we could better our approach as medical students and as a university to improve medical outreach. Medical outreach plays an essential role in the pursuit of good public health. Not only is it important to educate the public on simple yet vital pieces of medical knowledge, it is a very effective way of inspiring the next generation to become tomorrow’s doctors. Underpinning medical outreach is the philosophy of social accountability in medical schools, a concept which describes the importance of medical schools catering to the health needs of their community, both in healthcare and education. At Imperial, societies such as ICSM Vision do fantastic work in the local community and make ...