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BJGP Interviews

BJGP Interviews

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Listen to BJGP Interviews for the latest updates on primary care and general practice research. Hear from researchers and clinicians who will update and guide you to the best practice. We all want to deliver better care to patients and improve health through better research and its translation into practice and policy. The BJGP is a leading international journal of primary care with the aim to serve the primary care community. Whether you are a general practitioner or a nurse, a researcher, we publish a full range of research studies from RCTs to the best qualitative literature on primary care. In addition, we publish editorials, articles on the clinical practice, and in-depth analysis of the topics that matter. We are inclusive and determined to serve the primary care community. BJGP Interviews brings all these articles to you through conversations with world-leading experts. The BJGP is the journal of the UK's Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP). The RCGP grant full editorial independence to the BJGP and the views published in the BJGP do not necessarily represent those of the College. For all the latest research, editorials and clinical practice articles visit BJGP.org (https://bjgp.org). If you want all the podcast shownotes plus the latest comment and opinion on primary care and general practice then visit BJGP Life (https://www.bjgplife.com).Copyright 2026 The British Journal of General Practice Hygiène et vie saine Maladie et pathologies physiques Science
Épisodes
  • When mothers need more: Postnatal care and complex social needs

    When mothers need more: Postnatal care and complex social needs
    Jun 9 2026
    Today, we’re speaking to Dr Clare Macdonald, an Academic Clinical Lecturer in General Practice based at the University of Birmingham.Title of paper: Complex social needs and maternal postnatal care: what can primary care do?Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2026.0069Throughout the discussion we use the terms ‘woman’ and ‘women’, but we know that not all those who give birth will identify as women and intend this to mean all those who give birth.TranscriptThis transcript was generated using AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Please be aware it may contain errors or omissions.Speaker A00:00:00.480 - 00:00:51.740Hello and welcome to BJ GP Interviews. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the Associate Editors of the Journal. Thanks for listening to this podcast today.In today's episode, we're speaking to Dr. Claire MacDonald. Claire is an academic clinical lecturer in general practice, and she's based at the University of Birmingham.We're here today to talk about the editorial she's just published in the May issue of the bjgp, and it's titled Complex Social Needs and Maternal Postnatal Care. What Can Primary Care Do?So, hi, Clare, it's lovely to meet you and to talk about this brilliant editorial, but before we get into the editorial itself, I wonder if you can just talk us through what you actually mean by complex social needs in the context of postnatal care.Speaker B00:00:51.980 - 00:02:21.290Yeah.So I think when we talk about social complexity in the postnatal population, we're talking about women who have multiple factors that might be influencing how they can access care or influencing the clinical and social risks that they have. So for most people, the time after they've had a baby results in some social change.Even in the most straightforward, most brilliantly supported, most physically well person, there are big social changes. And that is a period of a complex time to navigate and finding your way and your identity as a family with a new baby and so on.When we talk about complex social needs, we're talking about women who face other aspects of adversity.So it might be that they have housing instability, it might be that they have experienced domestic abuse or they continue to experience domestic abuse, that they have a history of safeguarding issues, safeguarding for themselves or safeguarding concern, concerns about other children or other family members.And when we see women who have overlapping social risk factors that produces this kind of network of complexity that puts them at compounded additional risk and they need additional help in navigating their health needs in that time.Speaker A00:02:21.450 - 00:02:47.310And I wonder why you felt that this was an important issue to highlight right now. So is there anything in particular that makes you think that this is the right time to sort of look into this?I know that there's a complex picture in terms of sort of maternal care, and if we look at things like the cost of living crisis, which is compounding a lot of the pressures that people are facing. But talk me through what your impetus was in thinking about this as a now issue.Speaker B00:02:48.110 - 00:05:26.470Yeah, that's right.So maternity services are really high profile in the news a lot at the moment, but from a secondary care perspective, and quite rightly, there's a spotlight on the poor care that some women and their families and their babies receive from secondary care. And there are, you know, huge pieces of work being done to improve that, to improve outcomes and to improve people's experiences.But that focus tends to be on intrapartum care.So the care that people receive in hospital around the time of birth, sometimes there's a little bit of focus on antenatal care as well and reducing risk during pregnancy, there's a lot less focus on what looks like the less exciting time of preconception care and then postnatal care. So after women get discharged from maternity services, we know that they're often left feeling a little bit isolated in the healthcare context.Some qualitative research that we've done in the past, looking at women's experiences of postnatal care, women told us that they were surprised about they'd had so many appointments during pregnancy and then so much healthcare retention in the first few days after birth, and then they were just surprised. No, you know, they had a baby and no one was really interested in their health anymore. And that genuinely came as a surprise to them.We know that maternal mortality in the uk, which, thankfully, in absolute numbers, is. Is quite small, but it's certainly higher than it could be and maybe should be, particularly compared to other kind of similar European countries.And there are actually more maternal deaths postnatally, so in the sort of later postnatal period, six weeks to a year after birth, than there are in that sort of antenatal, intrapartum and early postnatal period. And all of the political ...
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    22 min
  • Seeing skin differently: Eczema, acne and psoriasis in skin of colour

    Seeing skin differently: Eczema, acne and psoriasis in skin of colour
    Jun 2 2026
    Today, we’re speaking to Dr Eliza Hutchinson, a dermatology registrar and academic clinical fellow based at the Centre for Applied Excellence in Skin and Allergy Research at the University of Bristol.Title of paper: Eczema, acne, and psoriasis in people with skin of colour: a qualitative UK-based studyAvailable at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2025.0720This study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to explore the experiences of living with an inflammatory dermatosis specifically in people with skin of colour. We generated eight themes important to participants: delayed or missed diagnosis; preferences regarding healthcare professionals; lack of online information and social media use; misunderstandings in cultural communities; concerns about treatment and lack of research; complementary medicine use; experiences and impact of dyspigmentation; and challenges with structural racism. These findings offer insight into the complex experiences and challenges faced by UK adults with skin of colour living with eczema, acne, and psoriasis. Our practical points for primary care clinicians are a step towards facilitating mutual understanding and improving care for people with skin of colour.TranscriptThis transcript was generated using AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Please be aware it may contain errors or omissions.Speaker A00:00:00.560 - 00:00:53.150Hi and welcome to BJGP Interviews. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the Associate editors of the BJGP. In today's episode, we're speaking to Dr. Eliza Hutchinson.Eliza is a dermatology registrar and an academic clinical fellow and she's based at the Centre for Applied Excellence in Skin and Skin Allergy Research at the University of Bristol. We're here to talk about the paper she's just published in the bjgp and the paper is titled Eczema Acne and Psoriasis in People with Skin of Color.A Qualitative UK based Study. So, Eliza, it's lovely to meet you and thanks again for joining us to talk about this paper.But before we talk about the paper itself, I'm just wondering what made you specifically interested in researching skin conditions in skin of color?Speaker B00:00:53.550 - 00:01:34.700Yeah, thank you so much for having me.So I think people with skin of color have been and still are massively underrepresented in kind of medical curricula, learning resources, clinical trials. And I certainly remember when I was at medical school, I don't think I had any teaching on diverse skin tones at all.And so it was as I sort of learned more dermatology, I just became very aware that they are so underrepresented. And I think earlier work in this area, I really tried to improve education for medical students and healthcare professionals around skin of color.That was kind of my starting point.And then I realised actually there's very little, if anything actually on the experiences of people with skin of colour, which is kind of what led me to this project.Speaker A00:01:35.820 - 00:01:38.380And you work in dermatology, is that right?Speaker B00:01:38.460 - 00:01:42.300Yes, yes, I'm a dermatology registrar based in the Bristol Bath area.Speaker A00:01:42.540 - 00:02:06.890Great. So it's wonderful to have your expertise in this especially.And we may get into this sort of about sort of your perspective from secondary care as well, looking back into general practice as well. But this paper focuses on eczema, acne and psoriasis and these are conditions that we see a lot as gps.So why did you feel that this was an important area to look at for people with skin of colour?Speaker B00:02:07.290 - 00:02:41.470Yes, I mean, as you said, we know that skin conditions are super common.They make up over 14% of GP consultations and eczema, acne and psoriasis are some of the most common inflammatory skin conditions we see and we know that they have a significant burden on everyone that experiences them.But I think particularly in people with skin of colour, we already know that these people experience kind of increasing things like Dispigmentation, so skin tone getting lighter or darker from their skin condition. And yeah, I think I just wanted to focus on some of the more common conditions that are seen kind of day to day in primary care.Speaker A00:02:42.110 - 00:02:54.890And this was a qualitative study and you emphasized that you really wanted to understand the experiences of people here. So talk us through a bit what you did. You spoke to people who had these conditions and had skin of colour?Speaker B00:02:55.050 - 00:03:26.060Yes. So we recruited using online methods for a couple of reasons, but really wanted to get kind of diverse range of experiences from across the uk.So we started off with an online survey and that was open to people of all skin tones. And we have written this up as a separate paper which should be out hopefully in the next few months.But based on these responses, we then kind of purposefully recruited people with skin of color to take part in an online ...
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    15 min
  • ‘It’s not just thrush’: Navigating recurrent vulvovaginal thrush in primary care

    ‘It’s not just thrush’: Navigating recurrent vulvovaginal thrush in primary care
    May 26 2026
    Today, we’re speaking to Dr Tori Ford, a qualitative researcher based at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford.Title of papers: ‘Accumulative Experiences: Navigating Healthcare for Recurrent Vulvovaginal Thrush from Patient and Clinician Perspectives’ and ‘It’s not just thrush, it’s recurrent thrush’: Patient and Clinician Perspectives on Diagnosing Recurrent Vulvovaginal Candidiasis’.Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2025.0437 and https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2025.0531TranscriptThis transcript was generated using AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Please be aware it may contain errors or omissions.Speaker A00:00:01.280 - 00:01:15.200Hi, and welcome to BJGP Interviews. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the associate editors of the journal. Thanks again for listening to this podcast today.In today's episode, we're speaking to Dr. Tori Ford, who is a qualitative researcher based at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. We're going to talk today about two linked papers that she and her team have published here in the bjgp.The first one is titled Accumulative Navigating Healthcare for Recurrent Vulvovaginal Thrush from Patient and Clinician Perspectives. And the second paper is it's not just thrush, it's recurrent thrush.Patient and Clinician Perspectives on Diagnosing Recurrent Vulva Vaginal Candidiasis. So, Tori, thanks very much for joining us here today.And this might come from a slightly unscientific perspective, but my feeling is that I'm seeing a lot more recurrent thrush in practice. And we know that it's incredibly common. I think, despite that, it's not something we hear discussed very often in primary care research.So my first question is, what made you want to study it?Speaker B00:01:15.520 - 00:01:54.060So, like you say, recurrent thrush is an increasingly common condition. We know that 1.2 million women in the UK live with it, 6% of people globally, and I just happen to have been one of them.So my paper came out of lived experience of living with recurrent thrush over many years and having a diagnostic journey of, you know, seeing different healthcare professionals looking for answers. And like you say, those feelings of shame and stigma that keep you feeling alone were all too familiar for me.So that's what actually led me into starting my PhD, looking at recurrent thrush and then wanting to hear other patient experiences as well.Speaker A00:01:54.460 - 00:02:22.220And we're looking at two of your papers here that were published in the bjgp, and they're both looking at the patient and the clinician perspective.And one thing that comes through really strongly in both papers is that recurrent thrush is often treated as if it's just repeated acute episodes rather than a condition in its own right. Why do you think that that distinction matters to patients and probably to clinicians as well, or should do?Speaker B00:02:22.380 - 00:03:55.420I think when we hear about thrush, it's often something that's seen as trivial or mundane, and that's often because it's through this lens of acute, transient, episodic, episod, and most of the time it is right. 75% Of people with Vaginas will have thrush at some point in their life.It's usually self managed over the counter with pharmacy care and symptoms resolved within a few days.But where recurrent thrush differs is when those symptoms keep coming back so that itching, burning pain and irritation becomes sometimes cyclical, sometimes repetitive. And I spoke to three or two patients who all had different durations of heat know, happening every two weeks, every month.And what they often found was because they were accessing fragmented care.So, you know, going to the pharmacy, sometimes going to the gp, sometimes maybe seeing sexual health, it was often seen as again, that mundane, one off, trivial case. And it was really hard to trace those patterns across care, especially due to a lack of continuity. Right.If you're trying to track a pattern but nobody is following you up, it's really difficult to, to capture those. So I think it's a few layers of one.I explore how these sort of social dimensions keep it seen as something maybe less long term, but then also in the ways that sort of care was fragmented made it harder for those patterns to be picked up and then to transition the care moving away from, you know, acute one off prescriptions of an antifungal medication to something that required repeat, repetitive, enduring, you know, testing, treatment, retesting of treatments.Speaker A00:03:56.060 - 00:04:09.970Absolutely. And I think what's interesting is that your papers describe recurrent thrush as something that's accumulative and cyclical over time.And you mentioned that it's not just these sort of one off episodes. Can you explain what patients meant by that?Speaker B00:04:10.210 - 00:05:13.850Yeah.So often, I think when we talk about ...
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    18 min
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