The SW SAPC 2023 conference took place in Birmingham this year. It was my first in-person conference since before COVID-19 and I approached the trip with a mixture of excitement and a touch of trepidation (Do I bring a mask? Should I take a test? Will people shake hands or touch elbows?). This being my first face-to-face wasn’t the only source of excitement. The conference coincided with train strikes on its first day, leaving the choice of braving potential train delays or driving. Perhaps for our sins, those of us who took the less green decision to drive were forced to take a detour due to a large stretch of the M5 being closed. A journey which Google Maps assured me was going to be 3 hours and 49 minutes thus ended up being 5 hours and 55 minutes…
The talks I was able to attend during the conference more than made up for the challenges I encountered getting to Birmingham though. They were informative and well presented (this includes our very own Stuart Spicer’s talk on deprescribing!). Colleagues from around England shared their learning, for instance the finding that video clips of patient experiences are a powerful catalyst in the co-production process. I heard about the Functional Resonance Analysis Method for the first time – this was a technique used by one group to visualise the processes that took place in the GP practices enrolled in their study and identify which processes overlapped. Another fellow researcher described his growing conviction that perhaps the RCT was not the best approach for his study, which allowed me the opportunity to reciprocate all the learning I was receiving and share D-PACT’s own experience and eventual decision to adopt a realist approach in our evaluation rather than a RCT design.
The three keynotes I attended were outstanding in my view. Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard opened the conference with a riveting session on whether there is a future for general practice in the UK (spoiler alert: yes, but with caveats). Many of her points resonated strongly with me, such as the importance of care that is focused on the patient rather than bound by protocol or pathways. Another of her points that stood out for me was that “research has to be on the agenda of every ICS” – not least because the poster I was presenting on behalf of our D-PACT team was all about how we might facilitate more GP practices becoming involved in research (in 2019/20 only 35% of all GP practices in the UK were research active – see the NIHR’s 2021 Clinical Research Network Primary Care Strategy). Very few were left untouched by Professor Aneez Esmail’s passionate stories about his research on accountability of the medical profession and the impact it has had on improving transparency in the GMC. Professor Judith Smith’s keynote on future models of primary care was a really helpful overview for me personally and her call to advocate for primary care echoed Professor Stoke-Lampard’s message.
But I think the memory that will stay with me longest was the utterly hilarious (and energetic) time I had with the Plymouth CPCRG crew on the evening of the conference dinner. Although I enjoy swing music, when I first looked at the programme offering a night of swing, I have to confess I did wonder how much this would sustain the attention of a roomful of people for the planned two (!) hours. The choice – along with the two dance teachers who forced us all to stand up and join in a dance lesson (just after I’d consumed a sizeable lemon tart) – turned out to be a stroke of genius. Who knew that learning dance steps that have names like “picking the cherry” and “the itch” to music enthusiastically performed by Jim Wynn’s Swing Orchestra would release everyone’s inner swing demon … I think Plymouth may have even managed to be the last group standing in the impromptu dance-off. Katy has photographic evidence of her, Dawn, Stuart and me showing off our jazz hands and has boldly included it in her piece for the CPCRG newsletter. I will sign off instead with a huge thanks (without jazz hands) to all who made it possible to attend😊.
PS please contact Katy, Stuart, Dawn or me for tips on how to rule a [swing] dance-off if you are going to a conference in the near future.
Community and Primary Care Research Group
advancing person-centred care