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North Northumberland Trainers Group

Trainers meetingheld on 18/3/97 at Belford surgery.

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Members Present:

Guest:

Minutes of previous meeting

Accepted

Matters arising

Physiotherapy course

Trainer group 1 GPR's have been circulated with the programme for the study day on 25th March, together with an evaluation sheet.

Embleton Hall

Eight or nine group members will be attending on 8-9 May, commencing 2pm on 8th May and finishing at 5pm on 9th May. Peter Havelock has not yet replied about preparatory course work.
Will all group members please note that they should contact Embleton Hall themselves well before the end of April to confirm their booking on this course, otherwise they may find themselves without accommodation.

Undergraduate GP project

The work on this continues. Difficulties regarding student accommodation may be solved by reducing the fee to all practices slightly in order to pay for the cost of accommodation in outlying areas.

House officer GP awareness-raising project

Mike Guy ran this session with the HO's at Wansbeck. Only 2 doctors were considering General Practice as a career, and arrangements have been made for them to visit a Northumberland practice.

IT project

Most practices will be "connected" shortly although there was still some anxiety about surfing skills. Brad offered help for any members who were having difficulty, and it was decided to focus on this topic at the September meeting, by which time all practices should be connected. Summative assessment: making sense of the workbook Discussion deferred to May meeting.

Consultation skills course for GP registrars

Correspondence with George Taylor produced the following comments from him:
> There are a variety of developments taking place around 'training for
> trainers'. I agree that consultation skills are vital, yet many doctors
> don't seem to think so. I think that the training practice is the place
> to learn them. I would be interested in any development bringing
> together better skills in trainers leading to better skills in trainees.
> I worry about one stop courses. They can initiate but how do you keep
> the momentum up  not least when the trainers skills might not be great?
> Cannot promise any money at this stage but look forward to development
> of your ideas.
For further discussion.

Agenda items

Experience of OOH scheme for GP registrars working in non-scheme practices

It was generally felt that some experience for these GPR's would be useful. It may even be that this a better forum for educational input than the traditional on-call system. Trainers working at the centres may be approached on an individual basis to arrange this experience.

Report from Trainer Plenary

A great deal of concern was voiced over moves to allow a free market for GPR's which may result in rural practices never receiving a trainee. Various solutions were proposed, including devolving from the scheme and "selling ourselves" as a group rather than individually. Some scepticism was expressed about the value of "glossy brochures" - would prospective GPR's really sit down and read several dozen of these in depth? It was decided to invite Iain Mungall to a "Simms" meeting for discussion of the Scheme future.

Northern evaluation of trainers' one-to-one teaching skills

Sandra Duggan presented an "in development" version of this formative assessment tool for trainers, and the group practised using the tool using video-taped tutorials. It is envisaged that the tool should be adapted by individual trainers for their own needs. The group felt that the tool would be very useful: it was quick and easy to use to assess the tutorials we watched. Sandra left with a copy of Dave Gill's tutorial assessment tool.

Tynedale questionnaire

The STAR rating has now been included on this formative assessment tool. Some frustration was expressed that these tools were not available electronically.

Future meetings

Wednesday 16/4/97 Simms, Alnwick Bill Cunningham: hospital docs' education in GP.
Thursday 15/5/97 Bondgate, Alnwick
Monday 16/6/97 Amble
Tuesday 15/7/97 Simms, Alnwick Ian Mungall: the future of the scheme
Wednesday 17/9/97 Wellway, Morpeth IT


Reference of the month
The SET-GO method of descriptive feedback
Silverman et al
Education for General Practice (1997),8, 16-23


Logo Brad Cheek 1997