Facilitators

Malcolm Thomas was a GP principal for 14 years in a 10,000 patient teaching practice in Northumberland.

He has held posts with Newcastle University Medical School and has been extensively involved in GP Training, culminating in 6 years as Associate Director of Postgraduate GP Education in the Northern Deanery in Newcastle upon Tyne. He first discovered some aptitude for coaching as a rowing coach while he was at Cambridge University - one of his crews represented Great Britain.

His main clinical and teaching interest has always been the challenge of fashioning effective and time efficient consultations with patients. This led to his founding EPI in 2003 - to specialise in developing high quality and practical training focusing on this outcome.

Gill Fraser was a GP principal for 12 years in a five partner teaching practice.

She then worked as Medical Director – first for community services in a big provider trust and then for Northumberland Care Trust, one of the few combined primary and social care organisations in the country.

She opted to finish her career back in general practice and now has a salaried GP post as well as sessional roles in child protection and appraisal.

She has had an interest in postgraduate medical education for many years from being a GP trainer through the development of a local multidisciplinary leadership programme to current work with EPI.

Richard is currently the Alcohol Co-ordinator for the Drug and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT) in Oldham. The purpose of the role is to reduce the amount of harm caused by alcohol through the implementation and co-ordination of an alcohol strategy.

Prior to this Richard took the lead on alcohol screening and brief interventions in Stockport, where he set up successful services in primary care, secondary care and the criminal justice system.

Richard has also been a team leader for a young person's substance misuse service, and has worked with looked after children, where substance misuse and self-harm played a significant part in their lives.

Richard has had an academic interest in the substance misuse field since studying at the University of Salford in 1999.

Ali qualified MBBS Newcastle 1986.

She then constructed her own training scheme, with hospital jobs in Newcastle and GP in Cheshire.

She then worked as a partner in Cheshire for 13 years, during which time she became a trainer and course organiser. She also taught on communication skills courses run by the Mersey Deanery. These inspired her love of working with these skills with doctors from many backgrounds.

In 2003 she joined the Northumberland VTS as a Course Organiser, and started working as a locum GP.

In 2006 she joined EPI and ran the 2 day Calgary Cambridge course several times a year, often with combined groups of GPs and hospital doctors.

She continues to work as a GP locum.