Working Life: I became a GP to make a difference

Dr Edel McGinnity, HSE enhanced-community-care GP lead

Dr Edel McGinnity, HSE enhanced-community-care GP lead. Picture: Gareth Chaney

7am

A 10-minute meditation using the Calm app gets my day underway, followed by a cycle to work in Mulhuddart. After 28 years working as a GP in a disadvantaged part of Dublin, I took up the post of GP lead one day a week, as part of the HSE’s new enhanced community care programme. My job is to make connections between GPs, HSE, and other services that will benefit patients.

9am

First up is a network-management meeting involving the management and different disciplines in my network, Blakestown, Dublin 15. Each network covers about 50,000 people. High rates of social disadvantage mean we have lots of challenges to address, including more health problems in the community. We also have a higher proportion of children in our area, which adds to the pressure on services.

10.30am

I go to a meeting about Exwell, a clinical exercise programme that recently started up in Mulhuddart with HSE support. We previously had a pilot involving patients from my own practice where it made an amazing difference — to older patients in particular — so it’s exciting to see it now active in a number of sites in North Dublin.

12pm

I attend a clinical team meeting, where complex patients are discussed with other HSE disciplines, often joined online by the patient’s GP.

2pm

Together with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service colleagues, we review a pilot project offering rapid access to specialist nurse assessment for children and young people with suicidal risk. This project is making a real difference in our ability to respond to families in crisis.

3.30pm

I’m in Ballymun Health Centre regarding a new referral process for children’s services. Children will be referred online via a single pathway for all HSE services.

4.30pm

I meet the professionals involved in the new chronic-disease hubs for diabetes, heart, and lung disease. We talk about how to get information about the new services to GPs, who can be so busy seeing patients that it’s hard to keep up with all the developments.

I became a GP hoping to make a difference. I relish the opportunity to be involved at the level where I can inform my GP colleagues about the new services and, in turn, be a GP voice at the HSE table, developing services that really make a difference.