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Michael Dixon (born 12 May 1952) [1] LVO, OBE, FRCGP, FRCP is an English general practitioner and current Head of the Royal Medical Household. [2] He is Chair of The College of Medicine and Integrated Health and Visiting Professor at the University of Westminster. [3]
Dixon studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Oxford before studying medicine at Guy’s Hospital.
He has worked as an NHS GP at College Surgery in Cullompton for 40 years. In 2007, College Surgery became part of the Culm Valley Centre for Integrated Health and is rated by the Care Quality Commission as 'excellent'.
For 18 years (1998-2015), Dixon was Chair of NHS Alliance representing primary care commissioners. Its mission was to provide a voice for general practice and its patients in planning local hospital and community services.
He has been active in the commissioning movement since the early 1990s, when he co-founded the Mid Devon Family Doctors Commissioning Group. [4] He sat on the National Executive of the National Association of Commissioning GPs (NACGP), founded in 1993, and was a co-writer of its document "Restoring the Vision" (1997), which was commissioned by the then Minister of Health, Alan Milburn. [5] When NACGP became NHS Alliance in 1998, he was elected Chairman and has continued in this role by annual election until he announced his retirement in 2015. [6] He is a frequent speaker and national advisor on GP commissioning and co-author of a number of books and chapters in this area (such as The Locality Commissioning Handbook) [7] and A Practical Guide to Primary Care Groups and Trusts. [8]
His national appointments have included membership of the National Leadership Network for Health and Social Care, the National Stakeholder Forum and National Steering Group for GP Commissioning. He was an Honorary Senior Fellow in Public Policy at HSMC University of Birmingham, [9] and also an Honorary Senior/Lecturer in Integrated Health at the Peninsula Medical School.
Past ministerial appointments include Chair of the NHS LifeCheck Board and Practice Based Commissioning Advisor to Lord Darzi. He is a past President of the Health Writers Guild [9] and was previously Senior Advisor of the King's Fund and Steering Group member of the King's Fund Enquiry on General Practice. [10]
In 2010, he became Chair of The College of Medicine, which emphasises the importance of health and healing beyond medicines and interventions and which includes social prescribing, lifestyle interventions and complementary and traditional approaches. He was a commissioner and health lead for the Healthy Cities Report launched in the House of Lords in 2022 and was appointed to the Health Council of Reform Think Tank involved in its "Reimagining Health Programme".
He was listed in the top ten most influential clinical leaders in the Health Service Journal 2013. [11] He has been listed among Pulse magazine's most influential GPs for several years [12] and was also a medical columnist for SHE Magazine.
He has pioneered social prescribing in his Devon GP practice for several years, [13] promoting it as an answer to over-medicalisation and soaring health costs. Social prescription facilitates patients with a range of social, psychological and physical problems to access a wide range of local interventions and services provided by the voluntary and volunteer sectors and others.
[14] In 2015 he co-founded the National Social Prescribing Steering Group, which he co-chairs. [15] This leads a network created in 2016, which currently has over 3,000 members active in social prescription.
In 2016, he was appointed the first National Clinical Champion for Social Prescription (NHS England) and he is an Ambassador for the Global Social Prescribing Network.
Dixon's other main field of interest is complementary medicine. Co-author of The Human Effect (Radcliffe Press 2000), he believes in "patient centred medicine" and the role of the patient in self healing. Reviewing the book, David Short, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Aberdeen writes:
the authors urge doctors to move beyond the idea of the body as a machine. If doctors do indeed regard their patients in this way, then this book is timely. One cannot help feeling that what is advocated is really a return to best practice of family doctors of an earlier generation. Perhaps the authors recognise this in saying 'what is called for is less of a revolution and more of a revival'. [16]
Dixon describes his approach to medicine in the BBC Radio 4 programme Healthy Visions, [17] which especially focuses on prevention and looking at the whole lives of patients. [18] He argues that it is beneficial to "break down the boundaries" between orthodox and complementary medicine, and argues that an increasing number of GPs are doing so. [19]
In a paper for the British Journal of General Practice, The physician healer: ancient magic or modern science?, [20] he writes:
it seems that the physician healer is now poised to rise again like a phoenix, not on a wave of nostalgia, but because modern science demands it. Placebo research and psychoneuroimmunology are beginning to clarify a role in which caring is no longer an act of compassion or indulgence but has everything to do with curing or in the preferred modern term 'effectiveness'. [21]
He was the medical director of The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health, which closed in 2010 after its finance director was arrested for stealing £253,000 from the organisation. [22] Dixon is a director of The College of Medicine which opened in 2010 [23] [24] with former Chair of the General Medical Council Sir Graeme Catto as its President.
Dixon has been criticised by professor of complementary medicine and alternative medicine campaigner Edzard Ernst for advocating the use of complementary medicine. Ernst said that the stance of the NHS Alliance on complementary medicine was "misleading to the degree of being irresponsible." [25] Ernst had previously been sympathetic to building a bridge between complementary and mainstream medicine, co-writing an article with Michael Dixon in 1997 on the benefits of such an approach. [26] Ernst and Dixon wrote that:
missed diagnoses by complementary therapists giving patients long term treatments are often cited but in the experience of one of the authors (MD) are extremely rare. It can also cut both ways. A patient was recently referred back to her general practitioner by an osteopath, who was questioning, as it turned out quite correctly, whether her pain was caused by metastates. Good communication between general practitioner and complementary therapist can reduce conflicts and contradictions, which otherwise have the potential to put orthodox medicine and complementary therapy in an either/or situation.
In December 2023, it was reported that Dixon had been appointed by Charles III as the Head of the Royal Medical Household a year previously in 2022, a decision which was criticised by campaigners against alternative medicine. [27] [28]
In his free time, Dixon gardens and fishes whenever possible. His wife, Joanna, is a professional artist and they have three children, two of whom are GPs and the other working in health and science policy.
In the medical profession, a general practitioner (GP) or family physician is a physician who treats acute and chronic illnesses and provides preventive care and health education to patients of all ages. GPs' duties are not confined to specific fields of medicine, and they have particular skills in treating people with multiple health issues. They are trained to treat patients to levels of complexity that vary between countries. The term "primary care physician" is more usually used in the US. In Asian countries like India, this term has been replaced mainly by Medical Officers, Registered Medical Practitioner etc.
General practice is the name given in various nations, such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to the services provided by general practitioners. In some nations, such as the US, similar services may be described as family medicine or primary care. The term Primary Care in the UK may also include services provided by community pharmacy, optometrist, dental surgery and community hearing care providers. The balance of care between primary care and secondary care - which usually refers to hospital based services - varies from place to place, and with time. In many countries there are initiatives to move services out of hospitals into the community, in the expectation that this will save money and be more convenient.
Family medicine is a medical specialty within primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. The specialist, who is usually a primary care physician, is named a family physician. It is often referred to as general practice and a practitioner as a general practitioner. Historically, their role was once performed by any doctor with qualifications from a medical school and who works in the community. However, since the 1950s, family medicine / general practice has become a specialty in its own right, with specific training requirements tailored to each country. The names of the specialty emphasize its holistic nature and/or its roots in the family. It is based on knowledge of the patient in the context of the family and the community, focusing on disease prevention and health promotion. According to the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA), the aim of family medicine is "promoting personal, comprehensive and continuing care for the individual in the context of the family and the community". The issues of values underlying this practice are usually known as primary care ethics.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) is the professional body for general (medical) practitioners in the United Kingdom. The RCGP represents and supports GPs on key issues including licensing, education, training, research and clinical standards. It is the largest of the medical royal colleges, with over 54,000 members. The RCGP was founded in 1952 in London, England and is a registered charity. Its motto is Cum Scientia Caritas – "Compassion [empowered] with Knowledge."
General medical services (GMS) is the range of healthcare that is provided by general practitioners as part of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. The NHS specifies what GPs, as independent contractors, are expected to do and provides funding for this work through arrangements known as the General Medical Services Contract. Today, the GMS contract is a UK-wide arrangement with minor differences negotiated by each of the four UK health departments. In 2013 60% of practices had a GMS contract as their principal contract. The contract has sub-sections and not all are compulsory. The other forms of contract are the Personal Medical Services or Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts. They are designed to encourage practices to offer services over and above the standard contract. Alternative Provider Medical Services contracts, unlike the other contracts, can be awarded to anyone, not just GPs, don't specify standard essential services, and are time limited. A new contract is issued each year.
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is a system for the performance management and payment of general practitioners (GPs) in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It was introduced as part of a new general medical services (GMS) contract in April 2004, replacing various other fee arrangements.
The NHS treatments blacklist is an informal name for a list of medicines and procedures which will not be funded by public money except in exceptional cases. These include but are not limited to procedures which the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has ruled of limited effectiveness and particular brand name medicines. In 2017 there was a proposal for 3,200 over-the-counter (OTC) drugs to be restricted and 18 procedures to be added to the list. This generated some controversy amongst doctors with some arguing that OTC should be blacklisted instead, and others believing the move did not take into account individual patient needs.
SystmOne is a centrally hosted clinical computer system developed by Horsforth-based The Phoenix Partnership (TPP). It is used by healthcare professionals in the UK predominantly in primary care. The system is being deployed as one of the accredited systems in the government's programme of modernising IT in the NHS.
Healthcare in England is mainly provided by the National Health Service (NHS), a public body that provides healthcare to all permanent residents in England, that is free at the point of use. The body is one of four forming the UK National Health Service as health is a devolved matter; there are differences with the provisions for healthcare elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and in England it is overseen by NHS England. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision in England, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing and able to pay.
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) were National Health Service (NHS) organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in each of their local areas in England. On 1 July 2022 they were abolished, and replaced by Integrated care systems as a result of the Health and Care Act 2022.
Michael Alexander Leary Pringle CBE is a British physician and academic. He is the emeritus professor of general practice (GP) at the University of Nottingham, a past president of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), best known for his primary care research on clinical audit, significant event audit, revalidation, quality improvement programmes and his contributions to health informatics services and health politics. He is a writer of medicine and fiction, with a number of publications including articles, books, chapters, forewords and guidelines.
Out-of-hours services are the arrangements to provide access to healthcare at times when General Practitioner surgeries are closed; in the United Kingdom this is normally between 6.30pm and 8am, at weekends, at Bank Holidays and sometimes if the practice is closed for educational sessions.
Sir Anthony Herbert Everington, known as Sam Everington, is a GP at a health centre within the Bromley by Bow Centre, in Tower Hamlets, an area of East London.
Lakeside Healthcare Groupwhich operates from a number of sites across Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, is one of the biggest General practice / Primary Care Providers in the National Health Service with 80 partners and almost 200,000 patients.
Professor Nick Harding OBE BSc FRCGP FRCP HonMFPH DRCOG DOccMed PGDIP (Cardiology) SFFLM, born 21 December 1969, is a British general practitioner and Chief Medical Officer at Operose Health.
Dame Helen Jayne Stokes-Lampard, FLSW is a British medical academic and a medical general practitioner. She is Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) a GP principal and Chair of the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP). She was Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) from November 2016 to November 2019. She is also a professor of GP Education at Birmingham University and holds a visiting chair at St George's, University of London.
The National Association of Primary Care is a membership association for Primary care professionals in the National Health Service and is the primary care provider network of the NHS Confederation.
GP Federations became popular among English general practitioners after 2010 as a means to exploit the opportunities—or mitigate the threats—posed by the Five Year Forward View proposals in the English NHS which envisaged delivering primary care at a larger scale than the traditional GP list. It is widely believed that ‘Practices cannot survive on their own – they have to look at ways of making themselves stronger.’ 15 sites were selected in December 2015 to test new enhanced primary care models serving populations of 30,000 to 50,000 patients. Some, but by no means all, clinical commissioning groups have given financial support to encourage the formation of federations.
In 2005 the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom began deployment of electronic health record systems in NHS Trusts. The goal was to have all patients with a centralized electronic health record by 2010. Lorenzo patient record systems were adopted in a number of NHS trusts. While many hospitals acquired electronic patient records systems in this process, there was no national healthcare information exchange. Ultimately, the program was dismantled after a cost to the UK taxpayer was over $24 billion, and is considered one of the most expensive healthcare IT failures.
A Primary care network is a structure which brings general practitioners together on an area basis, possibly with other clinicians, to address chronic disease management and prevention. In 2022 the term is used in England, Singapore and Alberta.
age 61 in 2014
