The minutes of last council should be appearing shortly on the RCGP website (now that they are agreed.)

I spoke up about three things

1) That GP as practiced at present is unsustainable. We have to stop doing things that don’t work.

There is no point in appealing for, and getting more funding if we spend it on things the politicians want, rather than things that patients need. We need to be in control of our professional destiny  – vocationally working to serve our patients.

2) Out of hours – getting GPs to do OOH in some areas is becoming increasingly difficult. Doctors working in co-operatives have more ownership and can dictate safe levels of cover far more than in the private sector. However  I think there are many people (like myself) that aren’t able to commit/ don’t want to commit to weekly sessions, but would be happy to do a session every month or so. The problem is that this wouldn’t cover the cost of indemnity to work those sessions.  This could be investigated.

3) Obesity. GPs do not have ‘the solution’ to obesity. It is misleading and inefficient to suggest that we do. It would be far better for the RCGP  to tell government firmly that they require to act, rather than passing the buck to primary care-  where our interventions make precious little difference.

Overdiagnosis group; will launch at RCGP conference in October and online work will start before then.