Speakers

Speakers for the Running a Quality Practice masterclass are listed below.

Dr Phil Yates
Phil Yates has been a full time GP in Bristol since 1985 and is a firm advocate of the value and potential of primary care as the bedrock of care. He chaired the professional executive committee of South Gloucestershire PCT from 2001 to 2005 and was clinical advisor to the National Primary and Care Trust Development Programme on the new General Medical Services contract. Since 2007 he has chaired GP Care UK Ltd, the largest GP company in the country embracing 94 practices, with a membership of 650 GPs covering a population of 740,000 in and around Bristol. As senior partner at his practice, Dr Yates bid for and won one of the GP-led health centres inaugurated in April.

Professor Helen Lester
Helen Lester is Professor of Primary Care at the NIHR School for Primary Care Research, University of Manchester. She has been a GP in Birmingham since 1990. Helen’s main research interests are health inequalities, primary care mental health and quality improvement. Professor Lester has worked as an academic advisor on the Quality and Outcomes Framework since 2005 and leads the external contractor group developing and piloting clinical indicators for NICE. She also led the academic team in Manchester which, with the RCGP, developed and piloted primary medical care provider accreditation.

Mr Stephen Hill
Stephen Hill is an engagement manager in McKinsey’s London office, where he focuses on helping health professionals to improve the care they deliver. This has involved working with PCTs to improve access to primary care services, including in Tower Hamlets, until recently the worst performing and now the most improved PCT in England. Before joining McKinsey, Stephen was a senior consultant at Newchurch Ltd and is a former member of the steering committee for the UK stem cell bank, adjudicating on applications for access to embryonic stem cell lines.

Ms Nina Strenitz
Nina Strenitz is an associate principal in McKinsey’s London office and a member of its healthcare practice. Since joining McKinsey in January 2002, Nina has worked for healthcare clients in Europe, the USA and the Middle East. Her work focuses on primary and community care strategy and operational improvements.

Dr Robert Varnam
Robert Varnam is a GP in inner city Manchester. He worked until 2008 at the National Primary Care R&D Centre, and his PhD explored the causes of error in UK general practice, providing a framework for understanding the role of clinicians and patients in maintaining safety. As an associate at the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, he is involved in the development of global trigger tools to detect adverse events. Dr Varnam is also working to develop and deliver the Leading Improvement in Patient Safety training programme for general practice.

Dr Michael Taylor
Michael Taylor graduated from Edinburgh Medical School in 1969 and entered general practice in 1971. Working in a socially deprived post-industrial town, he has developed skills in social and psychological problems, including addictions. A recent letter from the prime minister, Gordon Brown, complimented the practice on being among the first hundred public service bodies in the UK to receive the Customer Service Excellence award. Having worked towards the award over many years, being a part of the National Improvement Team, and as author of several leaflets on marketing as chairman of the Family Doctor Association, Dr Taylor is in a good position to understand and implement a responsive practice.

Ms Cath McCarthy
Cath is the managing partner of Hanham Health GP Practice. She was an industrial manager and is now a highly experienced healthcare manager. Her qualifications include a BA Hons in psychology, and HNDs in business studies and computer studies. Cath has been the elected chair of the South Gloucestershire practice managers’ forum and the practice manager representative on the South Gloucestershire professional executive committee and the primary care development group. She has recently managed the merger of her practice with another local practice. Cath is also involved in the development of the healthcare services at two prisons where Hanham Health provides the primary care service. She is on the executive leadership team of the South Gloucestershire commissioning consortium and is also the commercial director of GP Care – a Bristol based partnership of 89 GP practices providing enhanced primary healthcare in the Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset area.

Dr Simon Bradley
Simon Bradley has been a GP in Bristol for 20 years and is executive partner in a progressive 14,000 patient practice. A proponent of the value of general practice to the NHS, he is chairman of Avon local medical committee and has led some of the key IT developments in general practice. Recently, Dr Bradley helped to set-up, and is a director of, GP Care the largest GP provider in the UK.

Dr Clare Gerada
Clare Gerada has been a GP in Lambeth – one of the most deprived boroughs in London – since 1991. Her Kennington practice is part of the Hurley Group, a partnership of three surgeries in South London that work to provide high quality health services. Before becoming a GP, Dr Gerada worked in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, specialising in substance misuse. This remains her key professional interest and she is a GP specialist in this area, managing patients with heroin and cocaine addiction. Dr Gerada is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. She is medical director of the Practitioner Health Programme (http://www.php.nhs.uk), is committed to GP education and is a GP trainer.

Dr Simon Fradd
Simon Fradd trained at Westminster Medical School and completed a degree in pharmacology. He spent 10 years in hospital medicine specialising in general and urological surgery and in 2005 entered general practice. He has been a principal in Nottingham since 1986. Simon founded the Doctor Patient Partnership in 1995, a charity focusing on improving communications between doctors and patients and has been a central figure in promoting self care. He secured the contract to develop the NHS Direct home healthcare guide and its web encyclopaedia. Dr Fradd was a member of the medicines management advisory board and is the medical director of Making Sense of Health, an initiative to put health education into the national curriculum, which has been successfully piloted in 350 schools.

Dr Rafik Taibjee
Rafik Taibjee is a newly qualified GP working in Lambeth, having trained in Birmingham. He is deputy chairman of the RCGP Associates in Training committee and sits on the RCGP council. Recently involved with the BMA GPC, he campaigned for GPs to consider taking on more partners. Rafik also has an interest in medical education, teaching at an undergraduate and postgraduate level, and is a quality assurance partner for the GMC and Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board.

Dr Bill Taylor
Bill Taylor is an Aberdeen GP, who having achieved his FRCGP by nomination, joined the founding group of the Quality Practice Award and chaired the organising groups for 10 years. He was director of quality assurance initiatives for RCGP (Scotland), responsible for practice accreditation in Scotland and sat on the quality team development working group. Dr Taylor was an adviser to the establishment of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), is at present director of QOF reviewer training in Scotland and sits on the NICE QOF advisory committee. He was also on the criteria development group for Primary Medical Care Provider Accreditation.

Dr Zafar Iqbal
Zafar Iqbal has worked both as a consultant and as director of public health in the West Midlands since the mid-1990s, when he has covered public health functions ranging from programmes influencing the determinants of health to prioritisation of health resources. Dr Iqbal is now the deputy director of public health in Stoke on Trent involved in a major redesign of primary care. The objective is to develop some of the best primary care services in the country aimed at improvements in the health of the Stoke population at a faster rate than in the rest of England. He also has an interest in the environment and health, and, in particular, is seeking to reduce inequalities through health impact assessments of regeneration programmes, and to influence public policy. Dr Iqbal is a visiting professor at Staffordshire University working to implement a randomised control trial examining the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions for high risk patients with CHD. This builds on his previous work on CHD and primary care, on which he has published two books.

Dr Peter Graves
Peter Graves has been a GP for over 20 years, having spent 12 years as a principal in a partnership in Northamptonshire before moving to central London in 1998 to further his managerial career and to work in practices with varied and interesting inner-city challenges. He still practises once a week. After a period as medical director, while also working in London practices, he left London, in 2004, to become the full-time chief executive of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Local Medical Committees. Now, as well as supervising the PCTs, the LMC prides itself on providing many services promoting, facilitating and supporting high quality general practice.

Dr Clare Taylor
Clare Taylor graduated from Cambridge in 2002 and did a 4 month GP house job in a rural practice near Huntingdon. She spent 6 months as an A&E SHO and then completed a medical rotation at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, becoming a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Deciding to become a GP, she did a year of paediatrics in Kent then moved to Birmingham where she now works as an academic GP registrar. Clare is the chair of the Associates in Training (AiT) committee and AiT representative on College Council.