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RCGP chair-elect revealed as UK’s most influential GP for 2019

RCGP chair-elect Professor Martin Marshall has topped Pulse’s Power 50 list of most influential GPs in the UK for 2019.

The east London-based GP, who is currently vice chair of external affairs at the RCGP and takes up his new post from November, told Pulse in our exclusive interview that his top priority will be tackling GP workloads and ‘talking up’ the profession.

Professor Marshall knocks Babylon medical director Dr Mobasher Butt – who is number four this year – off the top of Pulse’s annual list from last year.

NHS England’s acting director of primary care, Dr Nikita Kanani, moves into this year’s second place after having spent the past 12 months leading the development of new primary care networks in England.

Meanwhile regular Power 50 entrant BMA GP Committee chair Dr Richard Vautrey maintains his position at number three, following a period in which he negotiated some of the biggest GP contract changes in around 15 years.

Professor Marshall told Pulse more doctors needed to be recruited into general practice, but also acknowledged more needed to be done to stop GPs in their 50s and 60s from leaving the profession.

He also stressed that while it would be a ‘cultural challenge’ for GPs to delegate to other members of the general practice team, the ‘reality is that general practice is going to become more multidisciplinary’.

However, he has cast doubt on the ability of new primary care networks to recruit the additional practice staff required.

The Power 50 list has once again been put together following nominations from GP colleagues about who holds the most influence at a national level.

This year Pulse is celebrating grassroots GPs by showcasing seven who have been shortlisted for the GP of the Year title at the General Practice Awards.

These include a single-handed GP who took over the running of their practice following the death of the senior partner, a GP who has set up child health hubs to provide paediatric expertise, and another who introduced a new process for registering homeless patients in her local area.

Meanwhile, we have highlighted four of the UK’s rising stars who are in the running for the trainee / newly qualified GP award at the General Practice Awards.

GPs making it onto this shortlist include a GP using social media to rap about social challenges and how to tackle them to improve the population’s health, and another who has carried out research that has discovered a plant-based solution to several common ailments seen in general practice.

Pulse editor Jaimie Kaffash said: ‘General practice continues to move through a tough period of rising workloads, not enough GPs and low morale.

‘There is uncharted territory in England where primary care networks are being introduced wholesale, while a new Government-backed indemnity scheme in the country and in Wales is supposed to be providingsome relief.

‘Our Power 50 list marks the GPs at the centre of these and other major changes happening across the UK.’