Champions Supporting Self Care in Practice for Minor Ailments

Professor Mike Pringle CBE

“We know from research that patients are ready and willing to take more responsibility for managing their own health but they need better information and more reassurance that they are doing the right thing.  Self care does not mean no care – it means empowering individuals to make an informed choice and giving them access to and advice on the different courses of action they can take.”

Mike Pringle is Professor of General Practice in the University of Nottingham. He is revalidation lead for the RCGP, medical director of the Revalidation Support Team and a board member of UKBiobank. He was Chairman of the RCGP from 1998-2001.   From 2004 – 2006, Mike was chairman of the Joining Up Self Care (JUSC) Project Steering Group, a self care aware action research project in a PCT.  Mike helps to run CHEC (Collingham Healthcare Education Centre), an innovative primary care development project. In 2007 he completed a secondment as part-time National Clinical Lead for General Practice in NHS Connecting for Health and is now Strategic Director of PRIMIS+.

Dr Paul Stillman 

“It’s frustrating that while nine out of ten people are prepared to initially treat minor ailments themselves the vast majority give up on their treatments in favour of a GP consultation. This is very often because they just don’t understand that most minor ailments will get better on their own without the need to see a doctor.”

I have worked in a large busy general practice in Crawley, Sussex for all my professional life. Primary care offers new challenges with every patient, potentially serious illness alongside those who are important for different reasons. One of my principal interests is health education, trying to help people understand and manage their problems better and more appropriately.

I became a trainer in the 1980’s, and later director of one of the UK’s largest vocational training schemes, working with young doctors preparing for a career in general practice.

My involvement in medical communication has spread to the media, writing extensively for doctors, pharmacists and the public, with numerous appearances on both radio and television. Self care has always been important – not only does it enable people to take control of their own illness and seek advice appropriately, it is vital to the very existence of the NHS, at a time when the escalating costs of sophisticated treatments needs the support of all of us.

Dr Peter Smith OBE, Vice President NAPC

“There are real advantages for everyone if we can persuade people to take greater control over the management of their minor ailments. The use of prescriptions and antibiotics will reduce, GPs can spend more time on complex consultations and patients can treat themselves without delay. Upping the importance of the self care agenda is good for patients and good for health professionals.”

Peter has been a GP for over 13 years in Kingston upon Thames. His practice is a second wave PMS plus pilot that has used the new flexibilities to address health inequalities in a deprived area.
Peter was previously Vice Chair of the Association of Independent Multifunds, helped set up one of the first multifunds and with other colleagues set up Thamesdoc, the first night rota co-operative in the London area. He previously edited Guide to the Guidelines, the first collection of national disease management guidelines, has co-authored guidelines on inflammatory bowel disease and learning disabilities and has recently edited 'The Handbook of Primary Care Trusts'. He is a member of the national Inequalities and Public Health Task Force.  From 2004 – 2006 he was a member of the Steering Group of the Joining up Self Care (JUSC) Project a self care aware action research project in a PCT.

Sara Richards BSc, RGN

"People need more education and information if they are to be able to manage their own health issues and to understand why taking responsibility for their own minor ailments is the best option for them.  I am delighted to be supporting the new Self Care in Practice movement and hope that it attracts widespread support from health professionals across the country."

Sara has been in Primary Care as a Practice Nurse for most of her working life, latterly also as a Nurse Practitioner at the Slough Walk-in Centre, and now as the Practice Nurse Facilitator for the Slough area. She sees and advises people with minor ailments on a regular basis and therefore knows the benefit to patients of encouraging self-care. She has written several articles for nursing journals on how to self-care for various minor ailments and a similar booklet for the International Council of Nurses.

Sara is a former Chair of the Royal College of Nursing Practice Nurse Association. Apart from nursing, she has volunteered for many years with the charity Cruse Bereavement Care and has just edited a book on their history for their 50th Anniversary.

Dr Simon Fradd  

Simon trained at Westminster Medical School and completed a degree in pharmacology. He spent ten years in hospital medicine specialising in general and urological surgery. Awarded FRCS England in 2004. He changed career in 2005 and went into general practice. He has been a principal in Nottingham since 1986.

Simon developed a strong interest in the (failure) of communications between health care providers and consumers. In 1995 he founded the Doctor Patient Partnership (which changed its name to Developing Patient Partnerships) a charity focussing on improving communications.  Unfortunately, due to lack of funding the DPP folded in 2008.

Simon has been a central figure in promoting self care. He secured the contract to develop the NHS Direct Home Healthcare guide and their web encyclopaedia. He was a member of the Medicines Management advisory board. He is currently the medical director of Making Sense of Health, an initiative to put health education into the national curriculum which has been successfully piloted in 350 schools.

Simon currently practices in Nottingham, Camberwell and Dulwich. He is the chairman of Concordia Health.

Dr. Ian Banks BSc. BAO. BCh. MB. MSc. PhD.

"We need to make sure that patients have the knowledge and confidence to deal with their own minor ailments and equally to know when they should be contacting their surgeries for a consultation. I firmly support the campaign and hope that GP consultations and numbers of prescriptions for minor ailments will reduce as a result."

Current occupation: A&E doctor and general practitioner / medical journalist

In a previous life Ian Banks was once a television repair man. He might not be able to cure you but he can do wonders for your vertical hold. He has four children, delivering one himself. “Not quite the same as child birth but at least I got to shout ‘push’.” While working part-time as a family doctor and A&E officer in Belfast, he also represents doctors for the British Medical Association as a member of Council for the UK and awarded the BMA accolade, the Association Medal. He worked on the Developing Patient Partnerships (DPP formerly Doctor Patient Partnership) for six years.

He is the official spokesman on men’s health issues for the BMA, president of the European Mens Health Forum and the England & Wales Men’s Health Forum, vice president of the International Society for the Study of Mens Health, deputy editor of the Mens Health Journal and for six years the medical editor for The Men’s Health Magazine.

The BBC book ‘The Trouble with Men’ was written by Ian in 1996 to accompany the television series of the same name. It was followed by Men’s Health, The Good Patient Guide, The Children's Health Guide, Get Fit with Brittas, Men’s Health in General Practice, Ask About Sex and the 50th NHS Anniversary book from the NHSE/HEA The Home Medicine Guide. He is also the author of the NHS Direct Healthcare Guide and Web site.

His other books include “the Dad’s Survival guide”, the Haynes” Man Workshop Manual” (2nd Edition) the Haynes “Baby Workshop Manual” (second edition), the Haynes Sex Workshop Manual. Haynes “Woman Workshop Manual” the Haynes “Cancer Manual” (the only book in 2004 to win the Plain English Award), Haynes HGV MAN manual on men and weight, ‘Brain’ deals with men and mental well being. His latest book is ‘Toddler Manual’.

The City of Vienna and the International Society of Mens Health honoured Ian with their award for public health in September 2007.

Dr Michael Dixon OBE, F.R.C.G.P.

"I’m hoping that this new Self Care in Practice movement will help to bring about a fundamental change in the way that health consultations are managed and how health professionals engage and work with the public."

Michael Dixon has been a GP in Cullompton, Devon for 24 years.  He has been chair of NHS Alliance, representing primary care, PCTs and practice based commissioners, since 1998.  His national roles also include chairing the National Life Check Board and PBC Lead on Lord Darzi’s Advisory Group.  He also sits on the National Leadership Network for Health and Social Care and the Medical Leaders Professional Council, He is a Senior Associate of the King’s Fund, and Honorary Senior Fellow in Public Policy at HSMC (University of Birmingham).

Other appointments include Visiting Professor to the University of Westminster (Integrated School of Health), Medical Director and Trustee of The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Integrated Health at the Peninsula Medical School.

DrJames Kennedy

Dr James Kennedy,  is the joint national clinical lead for the  Inpatient Diabetes project at the NHS Institute for Innovation & Improvement.  He is  Medical Director of Take Care Now Ltd, an independent healthcare company based in Suffolk and a GP Principal in Suffolk .  He is Prescribing spokesperson of the RCGP.  

He has served in a number of academic and NHS posts including Senior Lecture in General Practice at Imperial College Medical School, London, Medical Director / PEC Chair of Hillingdon PCT, Primary Care Adviser to the Healthcare Commission, the NHS Counter Fraud Agency, The Primary Care Development Team within the National Clinical Governance Support Team  and a number of NHS and DOH working groups .

Professor David Haslam CBE

"Over a long career as a GP, I have been very aware that many of my patients have a pretty good understanding of how they should best look after a wide range of conditions, but sadly seem to have lost the confidence in looking after common, everyday ailments. For this reason, I am extremely supportive of the Self Care in Practice movement, and really look forward to it making a real difference to health care."

David Haslam has been a GP in Cambridgeshire since 1976 and is National Clinical Adviser to the Care Quality Commission, immediate past-President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and visiting Professor in Primary Health Care at de Montfort University, Leicester.  He is also chair of the NHS Evidence Advisory Committee, and a member of the NHS National Quality Board. David was Chairman of the RCGP from 2001 to 2004, and he has written 13 books, mainly on health topics for the lay public, and translated into 13 languages, and over a thousand articles for the medical and lay press.

Dr Raj Patel

“People are increasingly sophisticated in their ability to look after themselves with help from the internet and health professionals.  Doctors should encourage this new independence and self-confidence.”

Dr Raj Patel is a GP in Greater Manchester and PEC Chair for NHS Tameside & Glossop.  He is a former GP adviser to the DH and chaired the Greater Manchester network of PEC chairs.  Raj is a regular commentator in print and broadcast on health matters.  He has often appeared on Granada, YTV and LWT’s Fatclub programme and wrote a weekly medical column in the Daily Express before becoming a PEC Chair.

Raj chairs the Staying Healthy Clinical Pathway Group for NHS Northwest, and within this role promotes self-care to prevent illness and reliance on health professionals.

Dr Steve Boorman MBBS MRCGP FFOM FRCP

"Our experience in Royal Mail, working with the UK's largest employer of men, has seen the value of rasing awareness about sources of advice and self care to enable our workforce to deal quickly with health problems.

This has helped us to improve attendance and enable continued improvement of the services we provide to our customers."

Steve is Director of Corporate Responsibility, and Chief Medical Adviser to Royal Mail Group
NHS Workforce Health & well-being lead reviewer

He was appointed to lead the review of NHS workforce health and wellbeing in January 2009, this independent reported its conclusions in November 2009.

An experienced consultant in occupational health, Steve manages a small team of specialists whose, remit includes developing policy and approaches across areas of  health, safety and environment within one of the UK’s largest businesses, Royal Mail.

Steve has worked in Royal Mail for nineteen years, as Chief Medical Adviser he has had responsibility for developing occupational health approaches across a diverse, widespread and complex business, which has included working actively on absence reduction and substantially changing Royal Mail’s occupational health and welfare provision in recent years.

Royal Mail’s corporate turnaround over recent years has achieved significant improvements in profitability, quality of service and employee morale – Steve has been directly  involved in the cross business initiatives on managing attendance and supporting changes to make the business “a Great Place to Work” in. He was also involved in redesigning the organisation’s ill health retirement scheme, and improving opportunities for rehabilitation. Steve has published widely and is an experienced contributor to conferences and public meetings.

Susan Summers

"If we are to halt the rise and prevalence of long term conditions, focus on prevention and upstream activity, including minor ailments,  is critical – self care is absolutely the catalyst for this" 

Susan is the Assistant Director of Quality Assurance and Self Care at NHS North West Strategic Health Authority. She started her career as a Registered Nurse and has an MSc in management Practice from Salford University Institute of Management and has extensive experience in both the private sector and the NHS.

Recent achievements include delivering the Working in Partnership Programme Self Care for You project across five spearhead PCTs; design and delivery of the NW Self Care Challenge; and has established the North West Self Care Forum, a regional network of PCT self care leads.

As co-facilitator of the NHS Next Stage Review Clinical Pathway Group for Long Term Conditions, she was instrumental in the work culminating in the report and recommendations that contributed to the North West Healthier Horizons vision and next ten year plan.

Susan was extensively engaged in the development of ‘Your health your way’, formerly known as the Patients Prospectus, and now available on NHS Choices; and also contributed to the development of the common core principles to support self care.

She has extensive networks at a regional, national and international level to support or lead various initiatives, and is currently the SHA lead for Triple Aim which is an international learning collaborative developed by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement to improve the health of a defined population, the experience of the individual and per capita cost. The programme currently involves 65 organisations worldwide, including 13 PCTs from the North West.

Margeret Kitching

"Whilst working on a project to promote better self care, we noticed the biggest challenge is developing people’s personal responsibility since often they turn back to the GP or A&E with their ailments.  The learnings of the project has been that we have to focus on what people can do for themselves and not what people, especially those with long term conditions, cannot do. " 

Margaret has worked in the Nursing Professions all her working life.  She has worked as a Registered General Nurse, Midwife, District Nurse and more recently as a Specialist Nurse.  Margaret moved to the post of Director of Nursing, 2 years ago, leading on developing clinical practice for all Nurses and Allied Health Professions, within Barnsley.  Margaret still practices as a Tissue Viability Specialist Nurse.

Throughout her career, Margaret has always worked within a multi-disciplinary team culture and has been involved at different levels in the organisation of driving and delivering change as part of the Modernisation Agenda and NHS Plan.  In this respect, Margaret is currently leading on an Innovative piece of work promoting Self-Care by the introduction of Care Navigation in Primary Care within Barnsley.