portfolio GP, GP locum, GP locum work, General Practice, Working as a GP locum, 21st Century GP
When beginning a career in general practice, your possibilities are endless. Especially as a new locum, this can feel overwhelming!
Many GPs choose portfolio careers, balancing clinical work with other roles in education, management and beyond.
As part of our 21st Century GP webinar series, Dr Neil Modha, Dr Carter Singh and Dr Ishani Patel sat down to discuss the different avenues newly qualified GPs could take in their career, as well as one of the biggest questions on everyone’s lips: how to avoid burnout.
Dr Neil Modha is a Peterborough-based GP with roles in the GP Federation, and Dr Carter Singh is a Nottinghamshire-based GP and a nationally elected council member of RCGP. Dr Ishani Patel is a London-based GP and the clinical co-founder of Lantum.
Read on to hear what they had to say about starting a career as a portfolio GP.
Finding your career path
Most GPs begin their careers in clinical practice, focusing on patient care and building strong relationships with their communities.
Beyond patient care, GPs can also step into non-clinical roles, whether that’s working in medical education, training or healthcare management. Positions within local medical committees (LMCs) or integrated care systems (ICSs) are also popular routes.
When trying to find the career path right for you, it’s important to ask yourself: does this interest and excite me? Is this something I can’t wait to try out?
Dr Patel acknowledged that the first five to ten years of your career is figuring out what type of GP you are — what’s your style, what’s your threshold of risk, what are your unknowns. “It takes a bit of time to figure out what works for you, and it’s perfectly okay to try something and be like, yeah it doesn’t quite work.”
Going from having a structured training programme and not having to worry about a paycheck to being an independent professional clinician can be tricky when you first qualify. Our speakers suggest not making a decision based on fear, because there’s still plenty of time and opportunity to decide what to do.
Crafting a standout application
Dr Patel recalls a time when she qualified as a GP and wasn’t sure what her career was going to look like. With no formal history or recent interview experience she applied for a fellow role in education.
She ended up getting the job. “Even if you see a job that you think is beyond your skill set, there’s no harm in applying and going through the process. Because then when it comes to something that you really want to do, you are going to be used to the process and have some muscle memory”.
When it comes to applying for jobs, Dr Modha also remarked: “I often try and look for opportunities to grow. Grow in experience, grow in connections and grow in yourself as a person”.
Opportunities as a portfolio GP
As a GP, you have are lots of clinical career possibilities, including:
- Sessional work, locum or salaried
- Partnerships
- Fellowships
- OOH, 111, or integrated urgent care
- PCN and hybrid roles
- Digital and eHub roles
- Private sector
- Pivot paths to mentorship, both medical and non-medical
Outside of clinical work, you can diversify your portfolio through other pursuits, including:
- Medical education and university teaching
- Medical-political work
- Commissioning services
- Academic research or education
- Healthtech
- Media
- Social work and community
- Aesthetics medicine
- Expedition medicine
- Journalism
- Quality improvement
“One of my first jobs was working out that you could save £80 on a glucose tolerance test by buying a can of Lucozade,” recalls Dr Modha. “Really simple stuff like that saved us £30,000 in our health economy, and so you just build experience by doing things like this.”
Where to find new opportunities
Dr Modha, Dr Singh and Dr Patel recommended a number of ways to find new portfolio GP opportunities, including:
- Medical education: Get involved in training and leadership roles at local medical schools or PCNs
- Medical politics: Participate in organisations such as the BMA, LMC and RCGP, as well as contract negotiations
- Commissioning: Work with ICSs to purchase and manage healthcare services
- Media and communication: Be available for interviews and hold a social media presence for practices
- Volunteering and shadowing: Volunteer for roles in GP federations, PCNs or ICSs, and shadow leads in various roles within the practice or PCN
- Writing: Write for medical publications, e-learning modules or practice websites
- Networking and mentoring: Build connections through events and look for advice from experienced professionals in the field
Avoiding the risk of burnout
When our speakers first started out as general practitioners, the average number of clinical sessions a week was eight. Now that work has intensified and there’s more complexity to the role, most salaried GPs think six sessions a week is the sweet spot.
Many locums also choose to do a session or two a week out of hours, and maybe a salaried role for a day or two.
“Variety in general practice keeps us dynamic, it keeps us on our toes and prevents burnout,” Dr Singh said.
“Gone are the days where GPs would wear their number of contacts as a badge of honour,” he also remarked. “There’s no honour there. If you’re breaching your safe working limits and burning out, that’s dangerous for the doctor and the patient. There’s no honour in the graveyard where those general practitioners and their patients end up. We need to care for ourselves so we can care for our patients.”
Dr Singh, Dr Modha and Dr Patel all emphasised the importance of finding new opportunities in the areas you want to gain experience in. They also added that the next three years in the NHS are going to be exciting for GPs under the new government and with new contracts, so it’s important to stay up-to-date with any new opportunities that arise.
Other things to consider as a portfolio GP
- What do you need?
- What do you want from your career?
- What interests and excites you?
- Plan professional development strategy
- Think “I’m a business and a brand”
- What financial income do you need to earn?
There are many steps you can take to find which work suits you best.
Dr Patel believes that LinkedIn is your digital business card, and is a good way to promote yourself. You can also sign up for NHS England bulletins for their emails and webinars, and email your local LMC to ask if you can spend a day shadowing there.
There may also be opportunities at your local ICB. If you can find out who your innovation and/or GP leader is, why not ask them if they can give you some insights into the roles available?
Essential resources for portfolio GPs
- Ockham Healthcare, a podcast series by Ben Gowland that covers new ways of working in general practice
- eGPlearning Podblast, a series from Dr Hussain Gandhi, a clinical director who breaks complex ideas about medical technology down to encourage discussion
- The Business of Healthcare, a podcast where Tara Humphrey looks behind the scenes at the business side of healthcare by talking to NHS and private healthcare leaders
- NHSE bulletins
- RCGP
- LMC
- BMJ and BJGP/HealthTech News
Start your career with Lantum
Building a successful career in general practice requires flexibility, continuous learning and a willingness to explore diverse roles.
If you want to quickly find locum work, Lantum’s iOS and Android app makes it easier to quickly find shifts that work for you.
Take advantage of instant notifications when practices post, next-day payments with Rocketpay and compliance documents all in one place.
