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New round of clinical priorities announced by RCGP

The Royal College of GPs has announced its latest round of clinical projects to support frontline GPs and their teams as they deliver quality care for their patients.

These will focus on:

  • inflammatory bowel disease;
  • women’s health;
  • acute kidney injury;
  • inflammatory arthritis;
  • health checks for people with learning disabilities;
  • perinatal mental health; and
  • Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (a group of rare inherited conditions affecting connective tissue).

The RCGP selects specific clinical areas, based on the feedback of its members, with the purpose of profile-raising and increasing awareness in primary care.

GPs with a special interest in the area work with the RCGP’s Clinical Innovation and Research Centre to deliver practical resources, such as toolkits, to support GPs in their day-to-day work with patients.

The RCGP will be working on the new round of projects in partnership with funders including Crohn’s and Colitis UK; Think Kidneys; NIHR CLAHRC Greater Manchester; Kent Surrey Sussex Academic Health Science Network;  the British Society for Rheumatology;  Wessex Clinical Networks and Ehlers-Danlos Support UK.

They complement the College’s ongoing Clinical Priorities for 2017 –  Liver Disease, Mental Health, Physical Activity and Lifestyle, and Sepsis.

It also has ongoing projects on end of life care, HIV and sexual reproductive health, antimicrobial resistance and safeguarding for adults and children.

In addition, there are ‘enduring’ clinical priority programmes on Cancer, run in collaboration with Cancer Research UK,  and Mental Health.

RCGP Chair Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said: “GPs are expert medical generalists, which means we have to be knowledgeable about all disease and illness affecting the ‘whole’ body, mental as well as physical.

“We are also under extreme pressure and time-poor. That’s why the College’s clinical priorities programme focuses on providing frontline GPs with the support tools and educational resources we need in the day-to-day care of our patients.

“We are very grateful to the charities and funding partners who make this work possible. Their contribution is having a direct and positive impact on the care that GPs provide to patients.”

PCSG committee member, Kevin Barrett who is the RCGP clinical champion for IBD said:

“I am thrilled to be working with the RCGP and Crohn’s and Colitis UK as their Clinical Champion for the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Spotlight Project. This is an exciting opportunity and will enable me to use the experience I have gained as a Clinical Lead for Gastroenterology at Hertfordshire Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group and as a committee member of the Primary Care Society for Gastroenterology. I am looking forward to raising the profile of IBD and helping develop tools to assist primary care to identify patients with IBD sooner, manage them more proficiently, and provide better holistic support to them and their families.”

Find out more about the RCGP’s Clinical Priorities and Quality Improvement Programmes.

 

The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 52,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.

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