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All PCNs have the opportunity to recruit clinical pharmacists into general practice and this week we begin a four part series of podcasts to support that recruitment. We begin, in Episode One, by talking to GP Pharmacist Hala Jawad. Hala discusses the role of a pharmacist within general practice, the way a pharmacist can work within a PCN and how a PCN can make themselves more attractive to pharmacists.

Hala was the first “Pharma Face” and is known as “The Brighton Titan” (0:55)

She moved from running a restaurant to becoming a pharmacist (2:02)

Getting involved with general practice (2:47)

Trying GP out for a week (3:48)

The benefits of working in a practice (5:01)

Learning in general practice (6:31)

The role of a pharmacist in GP (7:32)

Support for pharmacists (8:30)

Pharmacists in PCNs (9:39)

Advice to make an appointment successful (10:41)

Overcoming isolation (11:51)

How attractive is working in GP to a pharmacist? (12:42)

What makes one role more attractive than another? (14:15)

How will the pharmacist/GP relationship develop? (15:51)

Contacting Hala (16:44)

Hala can be found on Twitter – @jawad_hala

She is also on Facebook and LinkedIn

Her Ask Hala public website is here and her You Tube channel is here

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Today (8th July) is the first ever National Social Prescribing Link Worker Day! Organised by the National Association of Link Workers it aims “…to celebrate and showcase the contribution of social prescribing link workers in improving population health and wellbeing.” In support of this our podcast this week is the fifth in our series looking at Social Prescribing. Nick Sharples is Managing Partner at DNA Insight, a specialist training consultancy that is increasingly involved in training Social Prescribing Link Workers. In this episode he talks about the various models that are emerging for employing, recruiting and training Link Workers.

Nick describes his involvement in social prescribing (0:44)

Who employs the Link Workers? (1:53)

Reluctance to outsource the role (3:30)

Outsourcing the role (4:16)

Competition for Link Workers – three options for recruitment (5:36)

External recruitment (6:40)

Recruiting from within the practice (7:16)

Advantages of the options – building an appropriate model (7:54)

The provision of training (9:18)

Resources for training (10:28)

How much budget to put aside? (11:02)

Effective working with large scale – prioritising (11:58)

Average workload (13:13)

Managing a caseload (13:53)

A practical example from Scotland (15:32)

Sharing best practice – learning co-ordinators (16:33)

Finding out more (17:31)

The DNA Insight Social Prescribing pages are here

Nick has put together a list of useful resources below:

• Future NHS Collaboration Platform https://future.nhs.uk/connect.ti/socialprescribing/groupHome hosted by the NHS Personalised Care Group – Request membership via england.socialprescribing@nhs.net  and then access the Social Prescribing pages/Regional pages/Regional Discussion Forums

• Social Prescribing Network – https://www.westminster.ac.uk/patient-outcomes-in-health-research-group/projects/social-prescribing-network and @SocialPrescrib2 on Twitter

• Twitter Social Prescribing Wednesday – @SocialPresHour – every other Wednesday and hosted/organised by Elemental

• Friday afternoon (4:30pm to 5:30pm Fridays, 10am-11am Monday) Social Prescribing email meet-up social-prescribing@googlegroups.com  Apply for membership at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/social-prescribing or email sam@agileventures.org  if having difficulty.

• National Association of Link Workers www.connectlink.org Christiana Melam christiana@connectlink.org   Professional body representing Social Prescribers/Link Workers with lots of useful resources for Link Workers and those employing them.