CQC primary care chief inspector to address GPs at Pulse LIVE Newcastle

Pulse LIVE will return to Newcastle next month, with a keynote speech by the CQC’s primary care chief inspector, as well as expert-led presentations and networking.

The event, worth 4.5 CPD hours, will take place on 17 September at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead.

Professor Bola Owolabi, CQC chief inspector of primary care, will deliver the closing keynote speech.

She was appointed in May this year and is the first to hold the role since 2023, when the position was abolished as chief inspectors of hospitals and primary care were merged under a new chief inspector of healthcare.

However, the position was reinstated following a ‘damning’ Government-commissioned review’ of CQC published in October, which recommended that the healthcare watchdog should ‘rebuild its expertise’ by appointing highly regarded senior clinicians as chief inspectors.

Professor Owolabi is one of four chief inspectors at the CQC – with the others leading on hospitals, mental health, and adult social care and integrated care. Upon her appointment, Dr Owolabi said she would use her experience as a GP to help ensure that the CQC’s regulation ‘supports medical services to provide the best possible care for people’.

She is also NHS England’s inequalities lead and a practising GP in the Midlands.

Other speakers at Pulse LIVE Newcastle include: GP appraiser and Greater Teesside LMC member Dr Hatim El-Sherif on ‘The future of a locum GP in the UK: when GP is not a GP’; and Gloucestershire ICB clinical Lead for pain transformation Dr Cathy Stannar on ‘Rethinking chronic pain in 2025’.

There will be a number of clinical topics covered at the event, including: asthma guidelines, chronic pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, and perimenopausal problems. The full agenda can be found here.

Tickets are free for all practising, GMC-registered GPs and GP trainees. For more information and to sign up for the event, visit the event’s website.

In June, Professor Gillian Leng – leader of the Government-commissioned review into PAs – spoke at Pulse LIVE Birmingham ahead of the release of her report.

And in March, primary care minister Stephen Kinnock spoke at Pulse LIVE London, addressing GP delegates on general practice’s central role in the future of the NHS, and also answered questions from the audience.

Upcoming Pulse LIVE dates

Pulse 365 delivers free-to-attend events for UK GPs taking place online and in person, designed to suit your learning preferences and location. Check out what’s coming up later this year.

We will be visiting:

Newcastle – 17 September

Glasgow – 23 October

Belfast – 6 November

Liverpool – 18 November