Pulse PCN Leeds

Beth Gault is a senior reporter at Pulse PCN and Healthcare Leader. She has worked as a journalist for the past nine years, spending six of those writing for healthcare titles. @bethhopegault

Dr Sian Stanley has been a GP since 2005 after a stint as a surgical trainee.  She has been working in Bishops Stortford as a GP since 2013 and a Clinical Director since the inception of PCNs in 2019. 

A GP for more than 20 years, Rajiv is as passionate about General Practice as he was in his VTS years. He has had various Leadership roles over the years, from Clinical and Medical Directors in OOH Services, Partnership Trust, Prison and NHS E. He has been CD from inception of PCNs and has been Strategic CD for LLR ICB. He is active in LLR LMC. But what he enjoys most is being just a jobbing GP, being active on floor, and committing to never less than 6 clinical sessions a week at his Practices. He is fond of saying: “Seeing patients and running a Practice is the easiest and one of most enjoyable things I do in my day. Almost everything else is more difficult!”

Dr Finnikin is an academic GP with an interest in personalised care. His research into risk assessment, decision support and shared decision making has positioned him as an expert in this field. However, as a GP first, Dr Finnikin cares mostly about how we can use this approach to the benefit of our patients. He has been a National Clinical Specialist Advisor in personalised care for NSHE and designed and delivered training in shared decision making to a wide variety of medical professionals. @sfinnikin

Dr Patel is a former CRUK GP clinical lead on behalf of the North East London Cancer Alliance. As part of his role he has provided leadership and guidance on lung, breast and colorectal cancer screening and was proud to have contributed to video blogs on cancer safety netting and cancer awareness campaigns.  He regularly liased with PCNs and secondary care colleagues to enhance a positive working relationship between both. He is the current Cancer Lead for Havering North PCN which requires the implementation of the PCN contracted DES requirements which in itself demands an analysis and audit of cancer referral data from 14 local GP practices.  The PCN has been shortlisted at the PMA/ Best practice awards.

Louise has spent 25 years of her nursing career supporting general practice and primary care. Working full time in general practice for seventeen of those years, Louise was one of the first general practice nurses in the North of England in 2014 to pioneer shared medical appointments supporting communities living with long term conditions to access high quality nursing care. This integrative model still operational today has supported evidence-based health outcomes enabling nurses to create peer- led learning in public health and long-term conditions in partnership with patients’ families and carers.

Louise still works clinically in general practice; her former strategic portfolio includes undertaking the Primary and Community nurse lead for Greater Manchester and being a subject matter expert as part of the national executive for NHS alliance 2015- 2018.

 In recent years, Nurse advisor and representative in the British Medical Associations’ community care committee, 2019- 2022 working in partnership with medical colleagues on supporting improvement in policy affecting community teams and care homes. Moreover,

Louise is working collaboratively with National Senior nursing Leaders within the nursing directorate and the National Primary care team to raise the profile of the importance of the nursing workforce to the sustainability and future of both general practice and primary care.

‘The nurses working in general practice and primary care are an expert skilled workforce that continues to be hidden in plain sight.’

‘It’s unimageable that general practice teams can survive without the depth breath and continuity of care that their nursing counterparts bring to the health of the nation.’