MA FRCP FRCGP DRCOG Dip Hlth Mgt (Keele)

Jim trained at Queens’ College Cambridge, and St Thomas’ Hospital before entering general medicine which he pursued whilst serving in the Royal Navy in the 1980s. He entered general practice as GP Trainee at Parklands in 1991 and has been a partner at the practice since 1993.

He is interested in many things. Initially he specialised in gastroenterology and was a hospital practitioner in endoscopy, and ran the CHASE colorectal screening programme locally in the mid 1990s, also performing flexible sigmoidoscopy within the practice. Later leadership got the better of him and he gave up gastroenterology to become the Chair of the Chichester Fundholding Consortium in 1996. Always interested in the management and leadership of the NHS, he progressed to PCG and PCT Board membership as Clinical Governance Lead from 1998 – 2006, and has recently returned to the West Sussex PCT to help out in this regard.

Most of his patients seem to be very old (this could be a good sign…!) and he is therefore interested in old age medicine of any kind, with a particular interests in general medicine including gastroenterology, cardiology and endocrine diseases.

He has always had an interest in medical and health care education, and has been a GP Trainer since 1998 and locality GP Tutor since 1999. As the former he still trains GPST Registrars in the practice (now sadly only part-time); the latter role includes running the postgraduate training programme for local GPs (incuding ENSPIRAL – the protected learning time scheme) and also coordinating the local GP Appraisal process.

Jim now works part-time at the practice (Mondays all day, plus Wednesday and Friday mornings), but also holds an appointment at the Institute of Postgraduate Medicine (IPGM), a division of Brighton & Sussex Medical School (BSMS). At BSMS he has worked to set up the clinical component of the new undergraduate curriculum, lecturing and supervising undergraduate students, and recently has concentrated more on the postgraduate side, where he is now Programme Leader for Professional Development at IPGM. In this role he is developing and running new Masters courses in Leadership and Management in Health Care and also Commissioning for Health, as well as Medical and Clinical Education.

He is studying for a Doctorate in Education at the University of Brighton, with a research interest in how complexity theory might inform medical education curricula in the areas of professionalism, leadership and management.

In the good old days he sang, played golf, cricket and hockey to a reasonable level, and had time for his children… (actually he still manages some of these activities – but not all at the same time!).