CONTENTS 03 | NEWS 04
Big Interview – Professor Chris Whitty
07
RCGP rescue package for general practice
08
The great GP vaccination effort
11
New faces in Scotland and Wales
COLLEGE FIGHTS BACK TO DEFEND HARDWORKING GPS
08
13 | COLLEGE UPDATES 13
GPs’; mentoring programme on target for antibiotic prescribing
15
100 modules of online learning
By Martin Marshall
Y
17 | OPINION 17
Green GPs talk climate change
11
21 | STORIES FROM THE 21
FRONTLINE
Gurkha welfare, the social media medic and the GP collective
24 | GP PIONEERS 24
The inspirational women who made general practice
13 15 Staff editors: Daniel Openshaw, Gillian Watson
Reporters: Amy Boreham; Lisa Boyle; Emily Brewer; Tanisha Dadar; Cian Daly; Lizzie Edwards; Nicolas Webb; Emma Wilkinson Cover cartoon: Martin Rowson
Inside cartoon: Kipper Williams Design: Aura Creative Ltd
Feedback: can be emailed to gpfrontline@rcgp.org.uk or tweeted using #gpfrontline. You can also write to us at GP Frontline, 30 Euston Square, London, NW1 2FB
2 | CONTENTS
ou can’t fail to have noticed that the profession has been in the full glare of media scrutiny for quite a while now. From tabloid to broadsheet, radio to television, nationally and regionally, critical articles detailing the ‘negative experiences’ faced by patients when trying to get face to face GP appointments have been everywhere. There’ve been numerous times in the past when GPs have unwittingly become the target of media criticism, but the recent onslaught is the worst I can remember in over 30 years of being a GP. All this vitriol for following government guidelines and trying to keep patients, and our practice teams, safe. As well as being offensive and inaccurate, it is also irresponsible as it poisons the relationship that GPs have with their patients and undermines the trust and confidence they have in us. You need to be pretty thick-skinned to be a GP, but these almost daily attacks on our professionalism, commitment and integrity are demoralising and wear you down. Some colleagues have described it as a ‘war of attrition’ and, after 18 months on the frontline of a pandemic, they simply haven’t got the energy to fight back. Nor do demoralised and exhausted GPs have the luxury of newspaper columns where they can vent. These sustained and unwarranted attacks have sent the College into full-on rebuttal mode and we are waging a daily battle to robustly challenge the succession of anti-GP stories. We have adopted stronger language in our media statements and are creating an ongoing narrative on our website and on social media to show what we are doing to defend the profession. Despite the negative tone of the coverage, our statements are getting a good showing in all the nationals – including, rather ironically, the Daily Mail which launched a whole frontpage campaign on the issue but still made one of our responses its ‘letter of the day’. We’ve had a good track record of having our
