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- Page navigation anchor for GP with an extended role in population healthGP with an extended role in population healthThanks to Kathrin Thomas et al, for their Editorial on suggesting that general practice should evolve into ‘true community-orientated primary care’.As a long retired inner city GP who was born before the NHS, grew up in it and worked in it for half a century I had always assumed from the 1960s onwards that that is exactly what would happen and indeed what I believed in. I was privileged to have started up two purpose built health centres in relatively deprived inner city areas which were designed to house and work with multidisciplinary teams working closely with community health services, social services, local authorities (housing, etc.) and local community groups addressing the social determinants of health.I was a great admirer of Camden’s Medical Officer of health, Wilfred Harding, in the days when MOHs where concerned for the health of all the local population and had the power to respond and manage contagious disease outbreaks. Sadly, effective well-resourced public health services have been dismantled and are yet to be reinvented in the wake of the present Covid pandemic. I strongly suggest that as resident of Camden now I would be in a very much safer place in the current pandemic today if Dr Harding had been in charge still.The original plan for Bevan’s NHS was for GPs to be integrated into primary health care with local authorit...Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.