Living Well at the Deep End

Aim and intended course outcomes

Deep End GPs practice in areas of blanket deprivation with significant health and social care challenges and excellent insights into the problems that their communities face. This workshop aims to get participants thinking of practical ways that general practice can serve deprived populations well. We intend for participants to go away with new ideas for interventions that fit with the priorities of Deep End GPs, but also an understanding of why special consideration must be taken not to create intervention generated inequalities.

We ask participants to consider the following questions:

1. What are the barriers to living well that patients and staff face in the Deep End?
2. Are you aware of any existing interventions or projects in your area to help people live well?
3. How can we ensure that interventions don’t exacerbate existing inequalities?

Format & Content

[10 MINUTES] Short slideshow introduction by facilitator. We will introduce the Deep End and the findings of our co-design research interviews – these show that clinical priorities for Deep End staff are:

• mental health
• substance misuse (including prescription drugs)
• child health
• chronic diseases.

[20 MINUTES] Participants will split into four breakout rooms (one for each of the priority areas mentioned). They may briefly introduce themselves and how deprivation influences their practice. The main focus of this breakout session would be to consider the three questions above and to create their own idea for an intervention that might help people to live well in the Deep End. Facilitators CN and JW will go between rooms to provide assistance or prompts if required. Prompts will also be sent to all breakout rooms to suggest they move on to the next question.

Depending on the exact format of the virtual conference, we may ask groups to record their ideas on an interactive mood board like Padlet (https://en-gb.padlet.com/).

[20 MINUTES] Each group takes 5 minutes to report back. They will be asked to nominate a spokesperson to do this.

[10 MINUTES] The final ten minutes will be to summarise the group’s findings and to highlight key considerations for new interventions.

Intended audience

Primary care staff who work in deprived areas; primary care staff who work in more affluent or mixed areas but are in a Primary Care Network that includes a deprived area; researchers and other stakeholders who are involved in creating new services or interventions. A mix of attendees from these groups would ensure that Deep End priorities were highlighted going forth.