The Primary Care Workforce Team is now offering

FREE Mentoring

for our General Practice Clinical staff including
GPs, Clinical Pharmacists & More

New to General Practice or currently training?
At risk of burnout? Thinking of leaving General Practice?
Need help to manage your transition from training to a
new role, make decisions about personal development or
improve a process within your practice?

Is this you:

• I’m new to General Practice or currently training – how can I
  develop my career?
• I’m an experienced GP – but I’m at a crossroads in my career
• I’d like someone to help me identify new skills, inspire, motivate
  and increase my confidence and self-esteem
• How can I fulfil my potential?
• How do I manage my work/life balance
  

How can a Mentor help?
A mentor can help assess strengths and weaknesses, develop new skills and help in
planning and implementing short and long term goals. They can often provide a fresh
perspective, help in exploring alternative options and potential barriers and help seek
new ways of overcoming challenges and problems. We want to support you with
the challenges you may be facing.

About Mentoring
What are we offering?
We are offering you a mentor, as a ‘professional friend’, to support you in your general
practice journey. This will be someone with dedicated time, who will listen, so you are
able to share concerns and facilitate discussion, so you are able to think through how
matters may progress.
We have all been through a particularly difficult time and now we are re-emerging in a
different world with many additional challenges ahead. Mentoring is an opportunity to
enable us to see through these challenges, and a way we can look after our own
mental wellbeing. All our mentors are trained and most have educational as well as
clinical backgrounds. Why not give it a try?
A mentor can provide support with:

• Career Planning within General Practice
• Taking on or dropping additional roles
• Prioritising own wellbeing
• Surviving in General Practice
• Burnout
• Coping with Stress
• Dealing with a Complaint
• Juggling Everything
  

Your local Mentor leads…
Dr Tricia Houlston
Retired GP
My career has involved nearly 30 years of General Practice
combined with educational roles. I have taught undergraduates
in practice for 20 years and continue in my role as Deputy Head of
Academy for Community Based Medicine at the University of
Birmingham. I have been a GP Trainer, Training Programme
Director and more latterly, I was an Associate Dean with Health
Education England.
As part of this, I worked on the Professional Support Unit and headed up a mentoring
scheme for doctors in difficulty in the West Midlands. I believe mentoring should be for
everyone and we all have times in our life when we need that bit of support.
I live in Worcestershire with my husband and 4 cats. I enjoy playing golf (badly!),
gardening and sewing.GP Education is my specialist area.

Dr Gilly Cooper
Mentor, Member of BMA Doctor Supporter Team.
Retired from clinical practice
Previously a full-time partner at Elgar House, Redditch from 1982,
I retired from clinical work in 2017. I held roles in GP education as
trainer, programme director and appraiser, as well as being a
member and trainer on the former West Midlands Mentoring
Scheme. I was medical adviser to the Worcestershire Health
Authority and later to a Birmingham CCG.
Now I work with the BMA Doctor Support Unit who provide help to doctors
undergoing GMC investigation and peer support by telephone to doctors and medical
students in difficulty. I am a long-term member of the Balint Society.
Tricia and Gilly support our team of 20+ mentors

Mentee Feedback

We’ve been running this programme for 5 years and have seen
the benefits, here is some of the feedback we’ve received from
our mentees:

“I think that the mentoring process was overwhelmingly positive. Upon reflection
having an outside voice to listen to and to discuss things with was invaluable. In
a very busy and stressful environment often we don’t get a chance to have a
chat with other colleagues and I think it is a really positive step. Even though
we talked generally about several topics and maybe diverted a few times, when
the meetings are not there you realise the positive impact that they had. This is
particularly still important as we are in a pandemic and the ability to interact
socially is restricted.“

”My mentor has been exceptional in informing me about opportunities available
to develop my career here in Worcestershire. As a result I have successfully
applied for multiple fully-funded leadership programs which have enhanced
my leadership skills at work. One of the unique privileges I have with my
mentor is the time to learn about me and my career interests over multiple
informal meetings. My mentor is genuinely interested in empowering and
planting newly qualified GPs within the locality. I am very grateful to have such
inspiring Mentor!“

"I am fortunate to have an experienced mentor who is well informed about GP career opportunities and appropriately call my attention to opportunities and
encourages me to apply for posts that most appeal to my interests. My GP
mentor also provides an independent professional support especially when I am
in need of career advice or someone to talk to professionally".

To apply for up to 5 hours of free mentoring:
Complete the ‘Mentoring Request Form’:
Apply via: https://bit.ly/MentoringFormHW
or on our Teamnet page: https://bit.ly/gpmentorhw
*Duration/number of sessions to be agreed with Mentor during your first session.