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- Page navigation anchor for Industrialisation of general practiceIndustrialisation of general practiceMark Lown and David Peters1 ask if general practice is destined to change from a craft to an industrialised mass production process. The answer is “Yes, the changes show no sign of slowing down”. Their case for humanising health care is unarguable, but general practice is equipped for this task. GPs have mediated between the utilitarianism of the NHS (which wants the greatest good for the greatest number) and the moral obligation of the doctor to ill individuals since 1948. The GP is an advocate with one person, making a sluggish NHS more responsive, whilst containing anxiety and minimising investigations and therapies with the next.General practice is emotional labour. The practitioner has to understand and collate the patient’s emotions, and learn which of their own emotions should be hidden and which should be manifested. Those who learn how to modulate their emotional responses acquire the skill of “deep acting. Deep actors report job satisfaction. Their patients and colleagues see them as confident, empathic, adaptable and good at resolving conflicts. Again, the College has been working on this for decades, promoting consultation skills. General practice is also immaterial labour which demands judgement and discernment, open-mindedness and the ability to synthesise scientific and experiential knowledge. Here GPs do struggle, for three reasons. First, our reasoning is probabilistic and we use low perf...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.