Post Number:

7

Post Title:

GPST ITP in Public Health

Placement:

based at Bassetts House, Orpington.

Clinical Director: Dr/Mr/Miss

Dr Angela Bahn

Clinical Supervisor: Dr/Mr/Miss

Dr Angela Bahn or her deputy AND your GP trainer

Description of Post

This post is split between Public Health, based at Bassetts House and General Practice.

You will also gain some out of hours experience during the 4 months (4 sessions in total).

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday  

Saturday and Sunday

a.m.

Session in General Practice or Public Health

TBA

Free

Unless you have booked an OOH’s session.

p.m.

Session in General Practice or PH

TBA

GPST Half Day Release Course during term time

Session in General Practice or PH

TBA

Special features relating to Rota

You will need to discuss this before commencing the post with your trainer and Angela Bahn.

Learning opportunities (other than informally during clinical work)

You will have an induction into General Practice and start gaining the skills necessary to successfully complete your speciality training programme.

The Public Health component of the job covers many areas of the GP curriculum including:

• Clinical Governance
• Patient Safety
• Evidence Based Practice
• Research and Academic Activity
• Healthy People: promoting health and preventing disease.

Other areas that are covered in the post include:

• Sexual health
• Gender – specific health issues
• Learning disabilities
• Mental health
• Areas in other domains are probably pertinent to Public Health.

(Details of the GP curriculum can be accessed by the RCGP website) 

Reflections of previous post holders

What is the focus in Bromley?

Bromley is one of the most affluent outer London Boroughs and the population health deals more with addressing health inequalities. This is because people who live in areas of deprivation have a life expectancy that is 10 years less than those people living in the more affluent areas of Bromley.

What are the targets?

There have been various targets set out by the government in the white paper ‘choosing health’. There are also national screening and vaccination targets. In public health a lot of the work concentrates on whether we are achieving targets and if not, what can be changed to improve our rates. I’ve been specifically working on neonatal BCG vaccination and cervical screening. This has involved:

·        Meeting with various people involved in the whole screening and vaccination processes.

·        Collecting data

·        Data analysis using appropriate statistical methods

·        Producing reports

·        Presentations of findings

·        Working with various people involved to find solutions.

What I have done…

It has been a very enlightening process as I never imagined the number of people involved in vaccination and screening. Data collection is also fraught with difficulties with obtaining it in the first place then its reliability and completeness. Using the most appropriate statistical analysis is also difficult as I like many doctors have forgotten about chi square tests and pearson correlations! However, it is a steep learning curve and there are many people in the public health department who are more than willing to help.

There are lots of meetings to attend which are usually organised by yourself with other health care professionals in order to obtain data and see what is actually happening in GP practices etc. It is a big test of communication as sometimes people can be a bit suspicious of your intentions and you almost feel about as popular as an auditor! But I’ve found that an open honest approach is best and you have to underline that you are there to help if any problems are identified – which is true!

Sometimes public health does feel quite waffly – but you have to always stay focussed on what your aim is and what you are trying to achieve otherwise by the end of the week you can end up with reams of notes and handouts none of which are relevant!

Other than screening and vaccinations other areas that I have been looking at are the sexual health strategy and teenage pregnancies within Bromley, Mental Health strategy and diabetes related deaths. Other things to do are public health teaching sessions on occasional Friday afternoons that teach you about data collection, analysis and health inequalities.

There are also attachments to the Health Protection Agency which involves dealing with doctor and public enquiries regarding Hepatitis, TB, D&V outbreaks. A fun day is with environmental health where you visit rogue takeaway outlets in Bromley to give advice regarding hygiene and reducing transmission of D&V, or a nursery where e.coli or salmonella outbreaks can occur.

The good bits about Public health

• It’s a job where you can take charge and get involved in projects you are interested in. Sounds a bit cliché… but you’ll get what you put in.
• Every week/fortnightly you have a meeting with Angela Bhan when you talk through your work. This is very good because sometimes you may feel you’re going off on a tangent with a piece of work and she can redirect you if necessary. She’s also very good at helping you see the wood from the trees and focussing you.
• You will learn in depth about commissioning in the health service and how this is radically changing delivery of care. This is very relevant to general practice.
• You can ask for projects that you feel will be relevant to general practice
• You will gain an appreciation for the number of steps and people involved in implementing a strategy across the PCT.
• NO BLEEPS!! NO ON CALLS!!

The bad bits

• It is a job centred around your desk and meetings. There is no patient contact which is great at times but sometimes you do want to do what doctors do!
• It is very easy to drift for days and feel like you’re doing nothing – you have to be very self motivated!
• You have to be a very good communicator and fast learner because you’ll have to talk to doctors, nurses and other admin staff who’ll know a lot more public health than you. At the beginning it can feel like a jargon of abbreviations that you’ve never heard before.

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