Dr Chris Potts is a GP at the Moir Medical Centre in Long Eaton, a community GP and a clinical cabinet member (frailty and end of life care) at Erewash Health Partnership.
As someone who works both as a salaried GP and community GP, can you tell us about how these roles work and whether you would recommend this ‘portfolio’ career to others?
A salaried GP is the work that everyone is familiar with. It is still a fundamental part of primary care in the UK. It does look quite different to being a community GP. As a salaried or traditional GP, you’re very much seeing and supporting one patient at once. You might have a little role in being a supervisor to the wider team, but often this isn’t something that forms an enormous part of your day-to-day work. You have very little autonomy in terms of how you might deliver your work. The aim of a community GP is much more about supporting the wider team, certainly from my experience in Erewash at least. You spend much more time supporting a wide variety of professionals to care for a lot of patients. So, as the community GP, I’m probably supporting more patients on a given day, but having much less direct involvement with any one patient. That kind of efficiency saving means that when more complicated things come along, instead of having to squeeze that into a 10-minute appointment, as you would in practice, there is flexibility. It takes you as long as it needs to take because you’re part of a wider team and there is less of a requirement for you as the GP to do everything. You can use the other members of your team to support, liaise with other services and carry out background observations, for example.
Would a community GP role suit the needs of others either in or entering GP practice?
I’ve been very quick to recommend working as a community GP to friends and colleagues and this could be part of the reason why we are doing well with our GP recruitment. I think that also tells me that we need to get this message further out there and wider afield. One of the things that I’m aware of is that the GPs in Erewash are brilliant and enthusiastic and generally at the beginning of their careers. But that also shows me that the team in Erewash is not a representative sample of GPs. I think one of the areas that a community GP role would suit well are actually GPs towards the end of their career, who have a phenomenal amount of experience and institutional understanding to share and maybe are just beginning to feel a little bit worn down by some of what happens in day-to-day general practice. Some GPs feel they are not able to use the breadth of their expertise appropriately, in the time and space available to really make a difference to their very complicated patients because actually, so much of GP time is also about managing some very not complicated things. That’s not a negative about being a GP, but it’s certainly a reality of it. After 20 years or so in practice, some might wish to consider stepping away from that intensity. At that point in your career, it doesn’t always strike you that trying something completely new might be a brilliant use of your already really well-established skill sets. I would like to see the community GP role being promoted to those GPs who are thinking about retirement or stepping down some of their sessions, those who are looking for a bit more autonomy and flexibility. I would encourage those GPs to look at community GP as an option. There is an issue of burnout in the profession and the option of becoming a community GP could be a really great fit for some people, using their skills in a different sphere.
In addition, one of the things that I’m keen on is that we expose this way of working to GPs in training. As a salaried GP or a community GP, the skill sets are different, the patient groups are different, but the work is complementary. Having an understanding of both roles makes for a richer experience. Exposing our trainees to the role of community GP would at the very least help them understand more about what Team Up is offering, how it’s offered and how a subset of the population is looked after. When trainees become GPs, they will be able to jigsaw in well with this way of working. By exposing them to a Team Up approach in training, they’re much more likely to be interested in applying for community GP roles in the future.
And away from work, please tell us about your hobbies and interests.
What is your favourite…
Holiday destination: Anglesey
Film: 12 Angry Men
Book: The Witcher novels by Andrzej Sapkowski
Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Sport: Basketball