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In this episode Ben visits Thistlemoor Medical Centre in Peterborough to talk to Dr Neil Modha about their fascinating and innovative model for running what they call Open Access in general practice. Their system developed in response to a shortage of GPs and a high migrant population that do not have English as a first language. Using Healthcare Assistants from the local community to take histories and translate for the GPs, the model means that on some days 300 patients can be seen in the practice and has meant that admissions into hospital are some of the lowest in the area.

Show Notes

From 700 patients to 24,000 in ten years (44secs)

Explaining the growth – Eastern European migrants (1min 13secs)

Issues for local general practice (1mins 47secs)

Explaining the clinical model – adding value through the right people at the right time (2mins 13secs)

Open Access for all – 300 patients on Mondays and Fridays (3mins 04secs)

80% of patients don’t have English as their first language (3mins 44secs)

Healthcare Assistants take the history and do the observations (4mins 09secs)

Planning with the patient and booking follow ups (5mins 10secs)

Happening in parallel (5mins 41secs)

Similar system to medical students (6mins 15secs)

Clinical governance behind the model (7mins 13secs)

Why did the model develop in this way? (7mins 57secs)

What does it feel like for the GPs? (9mins 17secs)

Developing the rest of the team (10mins 28secs)

The workforce profile (11mins 01secs)

Establishing the credibility of the model (12mins 28secs)

The impact of the model on admissions (13mins 41secs)

Using local people (14mins 49secs)

CQC outstanding rating (15mins 23secs)

Growing for the future (17mins 04secs)

Offering services across Peterborough (17mins 46secs)

Training others and the pharmacy gatekeepers (18mins 44secs)

Functional alignment (19mins 44secs)

Is the model replicable? (20mins 56secs)

Where should other practices start? (22mins 42secs)

Looking through other perspectives (23mins 24secs)

Finding out more (24mins 27secs)

Two things of which Neil is most proud (25mins 24secs)

The practice website is here

The evaluation report into the use of Healthcare Assistants from the University of Sheffield is available here