Early bird registrations are now open for the Russell Conference. The conference is on May 21 and 22. Speakers include:
The full programme, speaker profiles and registration form can be found on this link
The Faculty Board met on the 24th of February. The minutes from this meeting can be found here. Matters of interest include clinical pathway development and workforce development.
One of the issues that the Board discussed was around mentoring of GPEP2 registrars. The Board is developing a programme called Kapa Kaiaka to mentor GP registrars (from their 2nd year onwards). This programme is intended to encourage and support young doctors developing their career in general practice. We are short of potential mentors in Whangarei. If you are a GP with Fellowship who wouldn't mind giving up about 1h of your time 3-4 times per year to support a GP early in their career then could you please contact our Kapa Kaiaka coordinator Gabby Montgomery
The Auckland Faculty Charitable Research Trust is looking for applications from Northland GPs for research projects. The next funding round is in May. Grant sizes are normally in the order of $2000 - $5000 and are aimed at encouraging grassroots GPs to undertake a research project. More information and application forms are found on the Northland Faculty website
Keep May 21 and 22 free in your diaries for the annual Northland Faculty RNZCGP Russell Conference. Speakers this year include Murray Beagley, Usha Shan, Barry Snow, Clair Mills, Lyndon Bradley and Jack Havill. More details will follow over the next few weeks.
Other events on around Northland in the next few months include Suicide Prevention Workshops held at Dargaville on March 12 and Rawene on March 11. These workshops are hosted by the Rural Health Alliance and have CPD points attached.
Chris Reid is the Northland Faculty representative sitting on the National Advisory Council (NAC) of the RNZCGP. The NAC met recently and the following is Chris's report.
Northland GP Registrars Alex McLeod and Steven Thrupp reminded the 50 delegates attending the Waitangi Symposium the sharp benefit of a good audit in General Practice. The future of Northland specialists is positive with Joseph Foote and Lyndon Bradley delivering concise 'GP friendly' presentations on personality disorders and hips respectively. Chronic Kidney disease take home messages were refreshed by Walaa Saweirs while Chappie shared his experiences with the 'stem cell revolution'.
Delegates may view their reception areas differently following qualitative research derived from patients drawings, presented by Kyle Eggleton and the newly formed Rural SLAT introduced their role, generating interest as to how this groups decisions will develop over time.
The political panel of Nick Chamberlain, Rose Lightfoot, Mary Carthew and Aniva Lawrence was bolstered by the presence of the college CEO, Helen Morgan-Banda. Integration and workforce sustatinability were common themes with the drop in registrar numbers causing particular concern.
The Northland Faculty of General Practice will follow up issues raised during the symposium and invite members to further contribute their views on our members forum 3 chillies.
This is a reminder that our Faculty is holding its annual Symposium this Saturday. The link to the programme is here. The RNZCGP College CEO, Helen Morgan-Banda will be joining our political panel session to discuss the future of general practice. The rest of the programme will include a vareity of CME sessions presented by local specialists and GPs. In addition two Northland GP registrars will be presenting the results of audits that they undertook in their general practices.
Come and support your Faculty, engage in discussion, help debate the future of general practice and most importantly enjoy collegiality with your Northland GP colleagues by registering now!
The Northland Clinical Governance Group is meeting in a weeks time. This committee discusses a variety of issues that span the primary care - DHB interface. If any GPs have an issue that they think would be relevant to be put on the agenda could they please let the faculty know by either posting the issue in our online forum or emailing the faculty through this link
There are just under 2 weeks until the Northland Faculty Waitangi Symposium. At the symposium we have the following specialists giving brief overviews of relevant topics to general practice:
Register now! by clicking this link
Are you getting frustrated with funding issues or annoyed with the continuing rhetoric of services being devolved to general practice yet with little money to follow? If this is the case then the upcoming Northland Faculty RNZCGP symposium, on the 17th of October, is for you! This is an opportunity for you to question your funders (i.e. DHB and PHO) on the burning issues. Of course the symposium is not all about letting off steam but is also an opportunity to mix with colleagues from around Northland as well as an opportunity to have some CME (5 points).
For the full programme click here and to register click here.
There are only four weeks to go until the annual Waitangi Symposium on Saturday October the 17th. This year the focus is on the future of general practice in Northland. GPs and practice nurses attending the symposium have the opportunity to question the CEOs of the DHB and PHOs on the future of general practice in Northland. In a separate panel discussion the question of funding for after hours, in particular of rural general practice, will be debated. The remainder of the symposium consists of a series of practice changing updates from invited GPs and Specialists.
The programme outline is:
| Topic | Speakers |
|---|---|
| Panel discussion and debate: What is the vision of NDHB and the PHOs for Primary Care? | Nick Chamberlain - CEO NDHB, Rose Lightfoot - CEO Te Tai Tokerau PHO, Mary Carthew - Acting CEO Manaia PHO |
| Panel discussion: Rural SLAT and after-hours | Rose Lightfoot - CEO Te Tai Tokerau PHO, Invited Rural GPs |
| ‘Ten tips to take away for tomorrow’ - Practice changing research from 2015 | Kyle Eggleton - GP & Senior Lecturer |
| Vasectomies Quality Control | Alex McLeod - GP Registrar |
| Recognition, monitoring and management of CKD3 at Dargaville Medical Centre | Steve Thrupp - GP Registrar |
| New Wine for Old Wineskins | Walaa Saweirs - Renal Physician |
| The Disorders of Personality in General Practice | Joseph Foote - Psychiatry Registrar |
| Hips 0–100 | Lyndon Bradley - Orthopaedic Surgeon |
| Managing your media profile | Andrew Stacey - Urgent Care Physician and MPS Adviser |
| ‘Sex it up’ | Peter Chapman-Smith - Appearance Medicine Doctor |
Register today by clicking this link. Cost is only $60.
Dr Peter Allen, Whangarei, wishes to retire and sell his practice. Central city General Practice with five GP’s and lots of support. Practice has minor surgical room, and pharmacy and physiotherapy in same building. Good income. 4 days a week. For further details contact dr.p.allen@xtra.co.nz
There is just over a month to go until the RNZCGP Faculty annual Waitangi Symposium on the 17th of October. The symposium this year is a mix of quick fire updates from both specialists and GP registrars as well as a political session debating the future of general practice and after hours in Northland. In the political session attendees are invited to pose anonymous questions (that Board members will ask) to the CEOs of the DHB and PHOs. Check out the full programme on this link and register today.
Most dairy farmers are busy with spring calving while the serious impact of the drop in dairy payout is sinking in. If you are checking in with how some of your farming patients are dealing with this it might be helpful to know that the Northland Rural Support Trust is a local service that helps farmers with financial advice and assistance, farming management decisions, facilitation with banks, work and income and Fonterra. They have facilitators that visit farmers under stress and support them through difficult times. They can be contacted via their website or by phoning 0800787254. These details will be posted on our resources page for future reference.
Registrations are now open for the 2015 Waitangi Symposium. This is to be held on the 17th October. The theme of the conference is "the future of general practice in Northland". The morning session consists of two panel sessions. In the first panel session the future of general practice is debated and in the second panel session rural SLAT issues and after hours in general are debated. The afternoon consists of presentations from the future of general practice - local Northland general practice registrars, as well as invited speakers who will give some brief clinical updates. The programme is to be found on this link. The cost of the symposium is only $60. Practice nurses are welcome.
Photos from the highly successful 2015 Russell Conference are available to view on the Faculty website.
The annual symposium for GPs and Practice Nurses is being held this year on the 17th of October at the Waitangi Copthorn Hotel. A detailed programme will soon be available. This year the symposium will tackle political issues. Featured discussions include rural after-hours provisions as well as the role of the DHB and PHOs in general practice. The symposium will also have brief clinical updates on a range of topics including personality disorders, foot conditions, renal disease, impotence and managing social media.
Report by Mark Lankshear on the Northland Faculty annual conference that was attended by over 1/3rd of GPs in Northland
Read MoreNorthland Faculty Board member Mark Lankshear sits on the Northland Long Term Conditions Clinical Governance Group his report from its latest meeting is below:
Dear all,
I attended the Northland Long Term Conditions Clinical Governance Group on 5th May 2015 as a GP representative.
This was an interesting and at times quite lively meeting chaired by Aniva Lawrence. We were a little low on numbers but did achieve a quorum. We heard updates from a number of work streams, specifically the respiratory, CVD, ACP, gout and dementia work.
One piece of good news is that the spirometry equipment guidance for Northland has now been approved and training is being undertaken for practice nurses – we were told 60 nurses have now been through this approved training and that the guidance re equipment and training will be circulated shortly to practices. The cost / finances and access issues have yet to be worked out.
The CVD rehab and dementia pathways are both going to go through a co-design process which will be beginning soon with Lyn Rostern newly appointed to take a lead on these – probably in Kaikohe to start with. The respiratory rehab programme still seems stalled and there was some frustration expressed around this and Lyn will be looking at any commonalities that could be useful here.
The gout project has had a redesign to try to ensure wide access and equity – we were told that all of Northland's pharmacists have signed up for this and although there will be two pilot sites initially it's hoped this scheme will be available Northland wide in the near future.
A number of other issues came up for discussion including the ongoing structure of rehab services in general. One of the work streams reported their concern that the MoH had issued a statement that they wanted to see rehab programmes based in primary care and with a generic flavour. The workstream felt this had risks of lack of expertise and focus and were going to write to the minister expressing this.
This has been a common discussion theme within the group and I (and some others) expressed the view that, although the key to successful rehabilitation is clearly good partnership working between patient, primary and secondary services, that these services should be based in the community and be patient rather than disease focussed. My feeling is that the key task is engagement (which is a primary care strength) and ensuring people with chronic diseases are ultimately well connected to primary care is essential to their long term management and well being. I think this is a key issue for this group which will continue to be a subject of debate.
As ever any feedback is very welcome and will be taken back to the groups next meeting which will be in early June.