Upcoming Research: Narrative accounts of primary care practitioners in a time of Covid-19

Written by: Jade Fellows

Consulted with: Professor Louise Locock and Professor Judith Smith

From our student experience of general practice, we know it is a vast, challenging and ever-changing area of medicine. However, the global pandemic has led to unprecedented rapid and significant changes to the ways of working in general practice. In order to ensure patients had access to services, general practices had to implement on-line, phone call and video consultations for their patients.

There has been little emphasis across the media and policy on general practice and the impact of COVID-19 and experience of primary care practitioners. But now research is being undertaken by the University of Birmingham and the University of Aberdeen to collect and draw attention to the experiences of primary care professionals. Professor Judith Smith and Professor Louise Locock, are capturing the real-time stories of GPs, practice nurses and managers.

This research will explore the experience and impact of working during the pandemic in primary care and the effects of the reform that has been implemented rapidly. It will also explore the perceptions of primary care practitioners of remote consultations when there was hesitancy and reluctance to implement these reforms prior to the pandemic. The research will also shed light on the challenges faced professionally and personally by primary care practitioners.

The initial results of this research will not be available until the Autumn but we look forward to sharing these with you. For both students and junior doctors interested in general practice, this will be highly beneficial research to develop our understanding of how primary care practitioners adapt and develop their skills in the face of new challenges and what the new reforms look like for our future!

In the meantime, GPSociety looks forward to presenting a series of Blogs and Vlogs from students, junior doctors and GPs of the challenges they have faced during the pandemic and how their experiences can help students learn more of the impact of the pandemic personally and professionally.

For more information on this research take a look at this article by the University of Birmingham.