Bringing GPs and consultants together

Clinicians in Southampton have been celebrating the success of the innovative GP-Consultant Liaison Scheme in which consultants and GPs came together to help bring about greater integration between hospitals and GP surgeries.

The scheme was led by the Faculty’s Year 3 Primary Medical Care module lead and Diversity Theme Lead, Pritti Aggarwal, in her role as NHS Southampton City CCG’s GP board lead, and involved consultants and GPs spending time in pairs shadowing one another with the aim of better understanding each other’s challenges at work and identifying new opportunities to improve the care of the city’s patients.

Since Autumn 2017, over 100 clinicians have taken part, and to mark the success, GPs and consultants came together at the Heartbeat Suite in Southampton General Hospital at the end of January to celebrate and reflect on the scheme. Feedback so far has been positive, with many participants requesting a further opportunity to shadow a colleague in a different location or speciality.

Pritti described the scheme as “a great opportunity for GPs like me and our excellent consultants to improve their understanding of each other’s jobs and through that improve the care of patients in Southampton. We are at the start of our journey and we hope this excellent initiative will continue to build relationships and share learning across the city.”

The views of some of the participants at the event were captured on video by Danial Bin Roslan, a Year 3 student on the Bachelor of Medicine International Transfer programme, and Pritti is looking at how to share these reflections and the learning of the half days to help the NHS system as a whole and inspire the next generation of doctors.