We're championing the knowledge work of academic primary care

Almost 100 Academic primary care clinicians and researchers came together on the 12 November to celebrate and champion the rich and diverse scholarship being undertaken to help improve primary care patient care.

Expert primary care clinical academics attended the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC) North’s annual one-day conference on Thursday 12 November. Hosted online by our Academy of Primary Care, over 50 papers were presented in parallel sessions by established and emerging experts, covering a range of primary care scholarship themes including, patient perspectives, clinical practice and medical education. These all promoted lots of thoughtful discussion and ideas. All abstracts are available on the SAPC’s website.

The event also included a panel discussion on, “Where next for academic primary care” with Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, Professor of GP Education at Birmingham Medical School, Professor Robbie Foy, Professor of Primary Care Research at Leeds, and Professor Joe Rosenthal, Professor of Primary Care Medical Education at University College London. There was a masterclass on how to write that all-important research question, and the day concluded with the distribution of prizes.

• Poster prize - Emily Devoy, University of Sheffield. Parents lived experience of health care for children living with long-term conditions: a qualitative interview study
• Student prize - Charlotte Ford, Newcastle University. Exploring medical students challenging experiences in clinical environments
• Primary care champion prize - Nicola Small. Establishing new methods to utilise patient reported feedback for older people with multiple long-term conditions to increase empowerment. 

The day provided an opportunity to showcase the ground-breaking research that our own Academy of Primary Care is leading in this field, including, for example, patient-centred care, problematic polypharmacy, primary care curriculum development, and homelessness community medicine. 

Reflecting on the event, Professor Joanne Reeve, Hull York Medical School’s Director of Primary Care Research said, “We were delighted by the success of the day in bringing together academic primary care expertise from across our region to celebrate and champion the work we do and the difference we make. We all left re-energised by the discussions and looking forward to future opportunities to meet again, including at our amazing University of Hull campus”. 

In looking forward, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, said, “It’s our time! Time to make academic primary care more visible. Our scholarship matters, but all-to-often we undersell our remarkable impact. This conference has beautifully demonstrated that research scholarship is coming forward with innovative ideas and solutions, and it is these that will help us tackle current future primary care challenges”.