National Summit on Quality in General Practice

I attended the National Summit on Quality in General Practice on 31 July 2014, which was held at the RCGP Headquarters in Central London. The event was organised by the RCGP, the Health Foundation, and the BMJ. Among the attendees were Dr Maureen Baker, Chair of the RCGP, Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor of the BMJ, and Dr Richard Vautrey from the BMA's General Practice Committee. The National Summit was facilitated by Judy Oliver.

At the meeting, there were presentations and discussion on the current state of general practice in the UK, the challenges we need to overcome to provide high quality primary care services, the importance of adopting a patient-centred approach in the measurement of quality of care, and how we can make change happen in the current political and economic contexts. Delegates worked in groups to address these issues.

Amongst my group were Anna Damerell, Richard Vautrey, Bryan Fisher, Nick Steele and Tom Duncan.We had a stimulating debate on the many challenges facing general practice - such as a rising volume and increased complexity of workload, reduced funding for general practice, dealing with multi-morbidity, and continuing to provide an accessible and high-quality primary care services.

Dr Fiona Godlee, Editor of the BMJ, speaks about promoting research and innovation in general practice.

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