Apple Pie -Promoting health by making connections

Lunch Club is legendary. Community groups like these can be low-key and unassuming but can transform the lives of those involved. Coming together for a bowl of soup, home baking, chat and activities, it’s a milestone in the week and an opportunity for the community to show some solidarity.

I see the consequences of isolation every day. Modern hi-tech medicine with scanners, surgery and medicines is all very well but unless we are able to recognise and influence the wider determinants of health, our work can feel futile, the miraculous technology redundant.

Each of us will have individual building blocks for a healthy life. It is more than just avoiding well-known harms from alcohol, tobacco, street drugs and poor diet. It’s also about building in the good things in life such as social contact, exercise and fresh air. We all benefit from structure in our week, feeling connected and having purpose in our lives but there’s often a gap to be bridged between our knowledge and our actions.

CBT in General Practice

This blog was written to support the session I run for GP Specialty Trainees in the North of Scotland.

During these sessions I hope participants will: –

1. Be able to describe a cognitive behavioural model
2. Know who it may benefit and how to access formal CBT
3. Develop a framework for diagnosing, assessing and treating commomn mental health problems in GP.

PHQ and the assessment of depression in General Practice

I have just been asked by a colleague for more information on my support for the use of the PHQ-9 depression rating scale in General Practice. Many feel it interferes with the flow of the GP consultation and reduces it to a tick-box exercise. This has been exacerbated by the GMS contract we work to that incentivises its use at diagnosis and at 5-12 weeks of treatment. Here is my response: –