GP won over by Co-creating Health

Dr Gillian Greenhough, chair of the Islington PCT professional executive committee, attended the course at the Whittington Hospital NHS Trust in London, which hosts the ADP in partnership with Islington and Haringey PCTs. She discussed her experience in BMA News on July 4 2009.

Dr Greenhough was initially uncertain about the course because it demanded three half-days of her time, and also because the Whittington programme focuses on diabetes, which is not a specialism in her practice. But she has become a passionate advocate for the programme.

Among the most helpful skills she learned, she says, was seeking a ‘joint agenda’ with the patient at the beginning of each consultation. Now, rather than asking, ‘How are you today?’ she’s more likely to begin with, ‘What are we doing today?’

‘It allows you to get an agenda on the table right at the beginning,’ says Dr Greenhough, ‘and find out what you are dealing with that day. You can avoid that situation where somebody presents another problem just as they are about to go out of the room.’

There have been more fundamental changes, too. The course ‘really made me think about the way I do things,’ Dr Greenhough reveals. ‘ I’m a doctor who patients probably become a bit dependent on, and that wasn’t doing them any favours. That was quite an eye-opener.

‘I realised that by getting them to think about what they were doing, they would end up being much better off.’