Hot Desk
hot desk v,to share a desk, office, or other work space between employees on different shifts or schedules; used here to denote the rotations of public health registrars and other medical trainees working in public health
GP Trainee Placement in Public Health
Doing a Public Health Placement
Some General Practitioner (GP) Training Programmes offer their trainees the opportunity to do a 6 month placement working in public health. This placement forms part of the 6 month rotation that all GP trainees do irrespective of whether they are full-time or part-time. Funding for this placement seems to vary from scheme to scheme and they type of public health placement can vary too.
I can only speak from my experience of supervising GP trainees within NHS England (London Region) where we can offer GP trainees the experience of working within a regional public health commissioning environment with an 1-2 week placement within a health protection teams.
Other schemes offer longer placements with health protection and are able to support GP trainees and foundation doctors to do on-call for health protection.
Learning Objectives
- To learn about public health specialism, its three domains and the nine public health competencies that public health doctors need to demonstrate
- To be involved in how public health is applied to commissioning health services and in improving quality of health care including clinical audits and incidents management
- To involve GP trainees in the management of communicable diseases and outbreak responses
- To learn how public policy on health improvement including children’s health is done nationally and regionally
- To learn about how public health relates to general practice, e.g. what you can apply as a general practitioner to keep your patients healthy and reduce number of visits; understanding the health profile of the population you will be looking after and how this may affect the practice
- To avail of learning opportunities in relation to public health, primary care and health services
Outcomes
- GP trainees will finish their placement understanding:
- how public health specialists can affect change and influence decision making
- applications of public health for their future role as GPs
- how commissioning of health services work
- importance of immunisation and screening as part of the preventive agenda to reduce morbidity, mortality and associated costs
- how to quickly collate knowledge and evidence and put it into action
- population perspectives, equity of service provision and health inequalities
Useful links
- Kings Fund animation introduction to NHS structures and funding: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/how-does-nhs-in-england-work
- Tips for GP trainees working in public health: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3750797/
- Commissioning: https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publicatios/what-commissioning-and-how-it-changing
- Health Knowledge is an online resource for public health learning: https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook
- Information on Section 7a public health functions: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-public-health-functions-agreements
Example of a project work in a placement
http://imperialprimarycare.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/visiting-outstanding-gp-practices.html