Catch up on the latest December Team Brief and then hear Lizzie House, district nurse transformation lead, talk to Emma about her career journey to achieve her nursing PIN and become a band 5 district nurse this year.

This episode's guest is Tim Horlock, GP Partner at East Quay Medical Centre and current chairman of the Local Medical Committee (LMC), who breaks down how primary care works in practice for our colleagues in the trust with Andrea Trill, our medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background.

Take 20 minutes today while you are commuting or doing your admin to hear what it means to be a GP partner, how primary care networks and Symphony Healthcare fits into the picture, how different colleagues in help to manage their patient list, and what a typical day looks like in a GP practice – from the clinical side with home visits and diagnosing patients, to the admin and how funding works to keep the whole system turning.

Hayley is a health care assistant on Waverly ward at Bridgwater Community Hospital and in 2024, she brought her idea of a Dementia Café to life, creating a warm, welcoming space for patients, carers, and colleagues to connect beyond the clinical setting.

Lizzie House, district nurse transformation lead, chats to Hayley about the café and how it helps her patients for Alzheimers Awareness Month.

As always, our podcast begins with a snippet from Team Brief to keep you up to date.

This episode's guest is Libby Boorman, learning disabilities nurse in our community team for adults with learning disabilities, who talks about the STOMP programme with Andrea Trill, our medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background, who uses her experience to ask the questions a GP would want to know.

The peri-operative service helps patients from the moment surgery is contemplated, through the surgery and recovery, optimising health and wellbeing for patients scheduled for major elective surgery. Their aim is to identify patients as early as possible to support them to be as well as possible before their surgery date and reduce cancellations and re-admissions.

Jacqui Wilson, senior operation manager for peri-operative services, Louise Lewis, lead nurse for peri-op, and Tom Teare, consultant anaesthetist and clinical lead for peri-operative medicine for the trust, have a discussion with Andrea Trill about their service. Andrea is our medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background, and uses her experience to drill down into what a GP wants to know.

Johnny Scott, children and young people participation worker joins us for the second episode of our newest podcast 'On the Move', which lets you catch up on a snippit of the latest team brief before Lizzie House, district nurse transformation lead, interviews Johnny about his 'finding solutions group' and the benefits of patient / service user feedback in continuous improvement of our services in Somerset.

Johnny explains "Without listening, we don't know what we don't know. And who better to tell us than the people using the service?" Take 15 minutes today on the move, commuting to your next patient or completing your admin, and hear more.

19 - 25 May is Dementia Action Week, so Andrea is joined by Helen Andrew, operational service manager for the central dementia service for Somerset FT and Cindy Firs, head of partnership at SPARK Somerset, overseeing the dementia partnership.

The team explains how the dementia service works, talking through the assessment, diagnosis and post diagnostic support visit, and what support is available through the Alziemers Society with voluntary organisations like memory cafe's, carers support, support groups for patients in the patient's local area.

On connecting the dots this month, Andrea, medical director for integrated and primary care at Somerset FT and a GP by background, is joined by Ali VanLaar, associate director of mental health and learning disability care, and Emma Lawton, liberty protection safeguards/mental capacity act lead (nmc), talking about the 'people who matter to patients project'.

The project focuses on improving information between a patient's healthcare professionals and the people that matter to them, such as family, friends and loved ones.

"People will keep trying to say the same thing, and feel anxious, unless they really feel like they have been heard..."