George Lewith Prize Winner 2024 | Reflections of the SAPC Conference

SAM ROLFE Medical Student University College London

It was an Honour to receive the George Lewith Prize for General Practice from the NIHR School for Primary Care Research, for my Systematic Review on the Total Triage Model in General Practice, and its opportunities and Challenges for Patients, Practices and Primary Care Health Workers. Which I completed as part of my iBSc in Primary Care Research and Clinical Practice at UCL. I am extremely grateful to have been offered a place at the SAPC 52^nd ASM in Bristol and was excited to hear from and network with researchers across the country.

The theme of the conference this year was Sustainable Primary Care, Healthy Systems and Healthy People. Being so early in my ‘career’ sustainability within primary care is pertinent to my future. It has been extremely empowering to see the focus on improving sustainable workforces; the upheaval of enduring primary care in the digital age and the innovative renovation of practice to improve environmental sustainability. Throughout the conference what has shone through to me is the incredible resilience and genuine desire of the community to improve practice for everyone, for years to come.

Are you feeling Uncomfortable? Professor Caroline Mitchell’s keynote certainly left an impact on me, learning of the lack of criticism of the relative lack of representation within research populations, especially of the often-languid approach to addressing the disparities and the compartmentalisation by the branding of ‘hard to reach groups’. It was poignantly uncomfortable to reflect on our own work using Arnstien’s ‘Ladder of citizen participation’ and recognise our own biases in previous work. I believe improving sustainability in research by improving it’s patient centredness will closely follow these guidelines.

It was fascinating to piece together the differing facets of General Practice sustainability and build up a comprehensive picture the more talks I went to. Learning of the prevalence of Large Language AI models use in patient note documentation, and the environmental impact of AI use. Another piece of the puzzle, was the discourse on workforce sustainability, it was clear that new roles in primary care don’t come without new challenges. It was interesting to see the differing evidence bases behind specific AHPR roles in GP especially the lack of secondary research surrounding the implementation of most new roles in Practice. Especially when compared to the comprehensive work by Dr Georgette Eaton on improving patient and GP understanding of the role of Paramedics in General Practice. As I often found in my work as a receptionist, the correct promotion of new and extended roles within general practice is crucial to their acceptance and future sustainability.

I leave the conference feeling inspired to conduct further research my own, and proud to be part of a community that are dedicated to improving themselves for the future. I appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with early career academics in Richard Ma’s workshop, on overcoming the difficulties of early-stage research, and have developed a better understanding of the specialty foundation programme and ACF GP training pathways. I want to say a massive thank you to my supervisors Professor Sophie Park and Dr Emily Owen, and to thank the NIHR SAPC for this amazing opportunity. I hope to be back next year in Cardiff to present some of my own work!