I’ve been a GP partner for 10 years in a large practice in Oxfordshire. My interest in lifestyle medicine comes from having been the lead Diabetes GP and working with a number of her patients to help support them to put their chronic diseases into remission with supported lifestyle-change. I;’ve been involved in primary care research, including trials piloting primary care support for dietary change to treat hypertension, obesity and type-2 diabetes as part of the DROPLET and DIAMOND studies. I was fortunate to get a GP Fellowship to pilot and assess the effectiveness of group consultations for diabetes and multi-morbidity and am now working with NHS England on a large-scale roll out of a support programme for primary care practices to use virtual group clinics as part of the COVID response.
Armed with the knowledge from the BSLM Lifestyle Medicine diploma, I’m passionate about improving lifestyle medicine education both for patients and health care professionals. As a result, I’m excited to have taken on the position of Interim Learning Academy Director at the BSLM to start to create a trusted resource for lifestyle medicine evidence, skills, qualifications and research.
As a keen enthusiast, not just for new ideas on how to tackle the growing burden of lifestyle related illness, but also for implementing changes at the coal face; I’m one of the RCGP’s person-centred care leads and I mentor our local Social Prescribers. Alongside these roles I’m working on a pilot project in Oxfordshire to respond to the challenge of growing health inequalities. I hope this pilot will help move primary care long-term condition management from a doctor focused “measure and medicate” approach, to a more patient-centred “support, motivate and educate” approach which has the potential to not just prevent, but treat and reverse chronic disease.