Asthma affects 5.4million people in the UK across age groups. The vast majority of diagnoses and long term management throughout life is in primary care. National guidelines (BTS / NICE / SIGN) released in November 2024 suggest very significant changes to making the  diagnosis and in management of asthma across the UK. This session will discuss the pragmatic practicalities of implementation and cover the clinical tips that will help improve care (support planetary health) and make clinical care easier. It will be aimed at the active clinician wanting to improve the care they provide.

Speakers:

Dr Steve Holmes, Chair, RCGP Severn Faculty; GP Shepton Mallet, The Park Medical Practice; Shepton Mallet

Dr Kevin Gruffyd Jones, Member of British Asthma Guideline Group (BTS/NICE/SIGN); Military GP, South West

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This session will help you to find out more about why you should and how you can be involved in research. A number of opportunities to get involved will be shared to help you to help you to explore your interests and understand how research could fit into your career.

This interactive session will give you the chance to hear from and speak to those working in primary care and will include research surveillance, delivery, clinician research and academic careers. You will leave this session with a clear direction and action to make your research dream a reality. 

Speakers:

Dr Nicholas Thomas, Principal GP - Windrush Medical Practice; Health and Care Co-Director (Medical) - NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network; South Central,; Clinical Research Lead - Royal College of General Practitioners; Deputy Lead for National Specialty group - NIHR primary care; Industry Lead for National Specialty Group - NIHR primary care

Prof Philip Evans, National Associate Director of Health & Care Research | RDN Coordinating Centre (RDNCC)  

Prof Christian Mallen, Executive Dean and Professor of general practice and Public Health; Director, NIHR School for primary care Research; NIHR Senior Investigator; Associate Director of Research and Innovation, Midlands Partnership University Foundation NHS Trust; Adjunct Professor, Global Health Research, Khyber Medical University

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“If I take any more pills, I’ll rattle doctor” … What can we do?

Prescribing is one of our key skills. Medicines can be life saving but can also cause harm. We are dealing with considerable complexity, how do we navigate the risks and benefits?  This workshop aims to build confidence in Managing Multiple Medicines and will be based on real-life case scenarios, with opportunity to discuss, share good practice and consider everyday medicines dilemmas. We will highlight tips & tools to take back to practice.

Join Dr Lucy Pollock, consultant geriatrician & author and Tessa Lewis, GP to navigate the challenges. 

Speakers:

Dr Lucy Pollock, Consultant Geriatrician, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust 

Dr Tessa Lewis, GPwER frailty & GP locum, Medical Adviser, Powys Teaching Health Board

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Join us as we showcase and celebrate the very best of research in general practice. Winners will be announced and awards presented for Outstanding Early Career Researchers and Research Paper of the Year (RPY). The authors will present their findings and implications for you in your practice; the studies often influence evidence-based guidelines, which in turn influence practice. You’ll also have the opportunity to speak with the authors to learn more about the projects, their career journey in primary care research, and how you can get involved in research in your practice.

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The aim of the session is to increase awareness among colleagues in primary care about the skilled worker visa rules and their impact on training and on trainees and newly qualified GPs.

A significant number of our GP Registrars are international medical graduates; and a significant - and rising - number are new to the UK when they start their GP training.

Working whilst on a visa brings additional challenges - logistical, financial, and emotional - which those who have not experienced it may not be aware of.

This session will share lived experience of training and post-CCT life on a visa. In addition, it will share information on the visa requirements that new NHS GPs may continue to have post-CCT and encourage colleagues to explore how their practices could become visa sponsors.

Speakers:

Dr Mostafa Abdallah, International Medical Graduates Support Fellow, Wessex GP School, NHSE

Dr Katie Collins, Associate Dean for International Graduates, Wessex GP School, WT&E South East, NHSE

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We know that primary care clinicians are encountering more distressed young people than ever before and may feel ill equipped to assess, signpost and support them with their wellbeing. This session is a dynamic, interactive presentation exploring recent advances and evidence-based, developmentally appropriate healthcare through a deep dive into the backend of the HEADSS assessment. Let's explore how we approach talking to adolescents and young people about Sex, Drugs, and maybe a little bit of Rock and Roll, and how we can improve so our young people feel safe and seen and our clinicians feel empowered and confident.

Speakers:

Dr Tara George, GP, Trainer and TPD, Chesterfield GP Speciality Training Programme and Don't Forget the Bubbles

Dr Kat Priddis, Consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine, Don't Forget The Bubbles, Watford General Hospital

Dr Naveen Jayadev, Chesterfield GP Speciality Training Programme

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This session will go through the journey of managing a primary health care centre in a conflict zone from the experience of both speakers who have worked with UK-Med as General Practitioners. We will discuss how we created a chronic disease register and how difficult it was to manage chronic diseases without the necessary resources. We will then discuss in the 2nd half of the talk how important it is to tackle chronic diseases and the common health challenges of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, giving an insight into why these conditions are poorly controlled.

Speakers:

Dr Clare Frost, GP

Dr Hareen De Silva, Head of Health Department, CADUS

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Women, people from black and ethnic communities and disabled people are under-represented in chair and non-executive roles in the NHS.  The Messenger review of NHS leadership, published in June 2022, highlighted within its recommendations the importance of equality, diversity and inclusive leadership. Proportionally GPs are less likely than other medical and other clinical professionals to gain regional and national leadership roles. Clinical CEOs come from varied clinical backgrounds, with 42% from mental health (including psychiatry) and 12% trained in paediatrics. 

This has been brought to the RCGP by members who hope the RCGP can provide developmental opportunities.

The RCGP has a successful Shaping the future leadership programme with Northern Ireland and Faculty participants and a valued offering in Wales. Once a member has graduated from one of these or equivalent leadership programmes, they become eligible to apply to our shadowing scheme where developing GP leaders shadow an established leader for a day or two. Alongside this we provide mentoring of leaders and mentoring by leaders and are considering a leadership coaching offer. This session aims to change the current lack of GPs being accepted onto Aspiring Chief Executive Leadership programmes by a presentation from GP leaders of their routes to their roles focusing particularly on increasing GP leaders from less well-represented groups. GPs from the global majority remain proportionally under-represented in senior positions and the numbers with declared disabilities are particularly low. 

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Connection is your Superpower – Sharing lessons from NHS Practitioner Health, arguably the happiest place to work in the world!

Join us for an interactive session that reveals the secrets behind the UK’s NHS Practitioner Health's success as a world-leading mental health and addiction service for healthcare professionals. Built on compassion, care, and connection, we will share evidence-based strategies that strengthen human and social bonds—proven to boost team performance, enhance mental health, and even improve longevity. Discover practical tools we use to foster psychological safety and create thriving work environments. Learn our innovative "5 a day" approach to connection, and leave feeling inspired, energised, and equipped with an action plan to enhance wellbeing in yourself and your teams.

Speakers:

Dr Helen Garr, Medical Director, Practitioner Health

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Pharmacogenomics underpins genomics-informed prescribing, utilising genomic variation to predict medication effectiveness and adverse reactions at patient-level.  NICE guidance CYP2C19 genotype testing to guide clopidogrel use after ischaemic stroke or transient ischaemic attack was published in 2024 with immediate impact in primary care; CYP2C19 genotype is relevant in guiding prescription of Clopidogrel and other common primary care medications including SSRIs and PPIs.  The session will increase confidence of primary care prescribers in deploying genomics-informed prescribing by equipping them with an understanding of Pharmacogenomics, implications, and work streams and informatics solutions to support delivery within primary care prescribing workflows and daily clinical practice.

Speakers:

Dr. Jude Hayward,  Joint Clinical Rep for Genomics, RCGP 

Dr. Imran Rafi, Joint Clinical Rep for Genomics, RCGP

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We will discuss how doctors reason in practice and share common examples of biases that affect our reasoning, the impact they have on patients, and ways to mitigate against these. We will introduce a novel framework, ‘Stop and Think’, and using authentic case-based examples, show the relevance and impact of asking ourselves questions from the framework to support clinical reasoning during a consultation (reflection in-action) as well as afterwards (reflection-on-action ). We will also discuss how we can use questions from the framework to approach challenges related to learners’ clinical reasoning in practice.

Speakers:

Dr Sian Powell, Deputy Director Undergraduate primary care education, Imperial College London

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We present an interactive escape room style small group activity exploring the challenges of navigating GP appointment systems, based on findings from our recent NIHR funded study of access to general practice – Access to general practice: Innovation, impact and sustainable change.

Using a series of “fiendish” puzzles, we show that while triage systems to get an appointment can seem simple they may be very difficult for some patients, especially when they are unwell. People trying to access general practice may have time constraints in addition to individual and social factors that make using access systems challenging.  We reflect on potential equity and system level implications. 

Speakers: 

Professor Catherine Pope, Professor of Medical Sociology, University of Oxford 

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Recognising “ordinary dying” is a core skill in general practice, which often provides families with much valued care of their loved one at the end of their life and is equally rewarding for many GPs.

Primary and Community Care deliver the majority of end-of-life care outside of hospital.  In this session, we will explore how fragmentation of care can threaten this important relationship, and how primary care has a role in both recognising supporting terminal care for older people in the community.

We will revisit the Gold Standards Framework evidence and provide a useful framework for recognising a deterioration due to frailty how to write an advance care plan with a difference.

Speakers:

Dr Holly Paris, Complex Care GP, Pier Health Group

Dr Deb Gompertz, GP with Extended Role in Frailty, Somerset FT and BGS

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This session will introduce participants to simple genetic concepts and genetic research relevant to primary care. We will focus on research being undertaken by the session facilitators: how genetic markers indicative of red blood cell conditions, more common in minority ethnic communities, are associated with underestimation of blood glucose by HbA1c. Following this, in small groups, we will use case vignettes to facilitate discussions around proposed pathways to incorporate pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine into primary care.  We’ll discuss the opportunities and pitfalls of personalised medicine; as well as how genomics has the potential to both tackle and exacerbate health inequalities.

Speakers:

Dr Miriam Samuel, Doctoral Research Fellow and General Practitioner, Queen Mary University of London, The Mission Practice, Tower Hamlets

Dr VEline Lesperance, Senior Clinical Advisor and Academic GP, NHS Race and Health Observatory, Queen Mary University of London 

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A fun interactive session looking at ways to introduce toys, technology and games into primary care undergraduate medical education. This session will look at how the community clinical lecturing team collaborated with the learning and teaching academy at Cardiff University, to implement a new teaching day. The day was developed to be an engaging and authentic learning experience to meet the needs of third year undergraduate medical students in helping them to prepare them for their community placements. It includes hands-on demonstrations of 3 components of this day using Lego, a Mr Potato head and Virtual Reality (VR) goggles.

Speakers:

Dr Claire Campbell, Community Clinical Lecturer, Cardiff University - School of Medicine

Dr Mary Robathan, Phase 2 Lead for Community Medicine, Cardiff University  - School of Medicine 

Dr Kate Hilson, Phase 1 Lead for Community Clinical Medicine, Cardiff university

Owen Crawford, Digital Learning Manager, Cardiff Teaching and Learning Academy

Michael Hackman, Learning Director. Cardiff Teaching and Learning Academy

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This session aims to discuss, offer appropriate advice and help people learn about the GP role in the care of people, of all ages, with concerns about their gender identity or sexuality.

This is not intended to be a debate over the current polarised views that exist with respect to gender identity. This workshop is a pragmatic workshop for GPs and other healthcare professionals seeing people with these issues. A practical, case based, approach to the ten minute consultation and follow up within an healthcare system that is constrained by limited resources and reduced access to services. 

Speakers: 

Prof Mark Rickenbach, GP, Park and St Francis Surgery

Dr Kamilla Kamaruddin, GP Lead clinician, East of England Gender services 

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Our RCGP Conferences are vibrant hubs of discussion about the challenges and opportunities in general practice. When RCGP prepares an election manifesto, we aim to harness those ideas. general practice in Wales is in crisis. The number of GPs and practices has been falling. Despite these challenges, we believe that with reform and resourcing general practice can not only thrive, but it can be at the forefront of alleviating pressures in the wider NHS.

Hear how RCGP Cymru Wales is making the case that general practice is a big part of the solution to a sustainable Welsh NHS.

Speakers:

Derek Walker, Future Generations Commissioner, Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

Jenny Rees, Health Correspondent, BBC Cymru Wales

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This session delves into the intersection of traditional educational methods and the rise of AI in planning learning activities for GP trainees and medical students. Dr. Rebecca McConnell and Dr. James Waldron will share insights from their extensive experience in education, exploring the quality, effectiveness, and ethics of AI-assisted educational planning. Participants will compare AI-driven approaches with conventional methods and assess their potential impact. Through interactive activities, attendees will create an educational plan with AI’s assistance and engage in a lively discussion about its risks, benefits, and future implications.

Speakers:

Dr Rebecca McConnell, GP & Clinical Associate Professor in Medical Education, Erewash Health Partnership

Dr James Waldron, GP & GP Associate – Nottinghamshire Alliance Training Hub, Parkside Medical Practice

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Debate creates a platform where individuals from varied backgrounds can express their viewpoints. By allowing everyone to participate, it ensures that voices from marginalized or underrepresented groups are heard. Structured debates often require participants to explore opposing views, challenging biases and fostering mutual respect. As a result, participants build empathy, which is foundational to inclusive practices with significant benefits for education, workplace culture and policy. Despite its importance, we are not taught how to debate well and there are no fora that encourage this. This session will explore ways of supporting informed debate within our profession and more widely.  

Speakers:

Dr Selva Selvarajah, GP, Bromley By Bow Centre

Dr Toyosi Adeniji, GP, First 5 Chair RCGP

Dr Victoria Tzortziou Brown, Vice Chair for External Affairs, RCGP

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In GP practices in areas of blanket deprivation (by Index of Multiple Deprivation), there are several areas of demand and resource mismatch resulting from seeking to serve these areas. It’s difficult to deliver both healthcare and research in these areas but it is essential that practitioners and their patients are given the opportunity to participate in research so that our research is inclusive, diverse and can meet the healthcare needs of underserved populations

This session will explore how engaging and supporting GP practices in these areas to participate in research can reduce health inequalities.

Speakers:

Professor Caroline Mitchell, Professor of general practice research and general practitioner, Keele University

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There is growing acknowledgement of Food Insecurity as an important social determinant of health. Food Banks, initially set up for emergency food provision, are now relied on regularly by many people, including those in paid employment. Linked with this are concerns about the provision of nutritional food for those suffering from Food Insecurity.  In response, various social enterprises “Social Supermarkets” have developed throughout the UK, providing discounted foods with an emphasis on dignity for their users. General Practitioners are often unaware of what local Social Supermarkets offer, including their provision of holistic allied services linked to user wellbeing.

Speakers:

Dr Meghan Deery, GPST3 Trainee, NIMDTA

Mr Andrew Forsay, National Director, Feeding Britain

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Robust cross-sector working is crucial to support the provision of good quality healthcare.

The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) has published over 60 reports on a variety of clinical topics with recommendations to improve both clinical care and the organisation of care. Many of these reports have specifically addressed the importance of a multi-disciplinary team (MDT), which includes primary care, to improve the quality of care provided to patients.

The purpose of this session would be to explore NCEPOD recommendations relevant to primary care, and to discuss ways to increase local implementation.

Speakers:

Marisa Mason, Chief Executive, NCEPOD

Heather Freeth, Senior Clinical Researcher, NCEPOD

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Dermatology developed as a specialty in Europe in the 19th Century, so the first descriptions of skin conditions were based on their appearance on white skin. However, 200 years later, our textbooks and teaching at every stage of medical education are still lacking in representation of all skin tones. This results in under diagnosis and under treatment of people of non-European ethnicity. 

In this session we will explore the different presentations of common conditions in skin of colour, learning how to recognise and treat people from diverse backgrounds, taking into account lifestyle factors and cultural preferences.

Speakers:

Dr Catherine Fernando, Salaried GP,  Orchard Medical Practice, Haddington

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