The GP consultant

In describing the workforce challenge, Pauline Nelson et al conclude that ‘skill-mix change is recommended … in general practice, [but] it may not always achieve the intended aims’.¹ As a 5000-patient GP surgery in the East Midlands, an area significantly under-populated by GPs, we changed our practice skill-mix in 2016 with incredible outcomes. We now work as ‘GP consultants’ — not just as GPs — a term we believe is essential for the future of general practice, to improve our morale and to inspire our future workforce to choose general practice. We supervise our excellent team of nurse practitioners, paramedics, pharmacists, nurses, medical students, and HCAs while they see the patients, update medication, and deal with routine enquires. Because of the skill-mix change, as GPs we can now oversee every patient contact that needs our high-level skills, spend more time with complicated patients, and at the end of most days have spare appointments that are not used and we leave the practice on time.

We are true specialists as GPs and it is time that this was recognised. As our secondary care colleagues have a team who work with them, so should we. The time for isolation in primary care is over. Think of yourself as a ‘GP consultant’ and create an effective and highly skilled team around you where each person works to their own unique skill-mix, leaving the ‘consultant’ to supervise, inspire, educate and nurture those around them. I would encourage other GPs to look at our model of care.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2018