Mersey Faculty

We support over 2,400 members, Fellows, AiTs and students across Merseyside and Cheshire in their career and continued professional development. The Mersey faculty covers Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley, Halton and St Helens, East and West Cheshire, and Isle of Man.

Latest from your faculty

Mersey Faculty Fellows Dinner 2023

On Friday 20 January, Mersey Faculty welcomed 30 of our Fellows to the Mere Court Country Hotel in Knutsford for the first Fellows dinner in Mersey Faculty for more than 3 years. The evening was a time to meet with colleagues, sit, chat and discuss anything and everything as well as welcome new Fellows from around the area. Our guest speakers, Dr Michael Van Dessle (Provost), Dr Simon Tobin (RCGP National Fellowship Lead) and Prof Steve Cox (Chair), welcomed all our guests and reminded everyone of the amazing work each and every person in the room does for general practice in the local area. 

Roundtable discussion with local Merseyside and Cheshire MPs and ICS lead

Recently the Merseyside and Cheshire Faculty hosted the first of our Fit for the Future Faculty events. We had a good turn out with over 35 GPs, 3 MPs and the Chair and Medical Director from the local ICS. The only disappointment was that three more MPs RSVP'd but were not able to make it on the night. It was a really strong conversation, covering practical discussions about how to improve general practice, what powers lie in national government and those at the ICS level and most interestingly discussions on what is and should be the role of a GP. Some of the topics we discussed were:

• ARRs roles - what impact they are having on patient care and GP workload, and the need for greater flexibility in the use of the ARRs budget.
• What the ICS is doing on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).
• The problem of sharing information between hospitals and general practice.
• Recruitment and retention - what can be done at the ICS level and at the national level.
• What more can be done to ensure cooperation in primary care, including the role of PCNs.
• The role and value of the different types of GPs including partners, salaried GPs, locums and sessional GPs.

We will be following up with all the MPs who attended and those who had expressed an interest. We are also keen to hear thoughts from those who attended.

Welcome morning for IMG doctors

On Saturday 25 February 2023, we welcomed a number of international medical graduates to our first IMG welcome morning. The morning was filled with discussions from our four speakers who shared their experiences about living and working in the UK. We hope the guests who came along found the morning useful.  

We will be hosting our second welcome morning later in the year so look out for the date.

Get involved

Upcoming events

RCGP Mersey offer a wide range of online and face to face events. Take a look via the link below.

View all learning and social events in Mersey

Veteran friendly GP practices

We are working with NHS England to accredit GP practices as 'veteran friendly'. This programme supports practice to deliver the best possible care and treatment for patients who have served in the armed forces.

Over 2,000 GP practices in England are already accredited through this programme. We provide accredited practices with access to free online training, support them to identify and code their veteran patients, and offer advice on referrals. While each accredited practice must nominate a clinical lead, training content and activities are suitable for the whole practice to enhance your delivery of veteran healthcare.

To find out more information, please visit the Veterans' healthcare toolkit on our eLearning platform.

Our board

Our Faculty board meet four times per year in February, June, September and November, usually via Zoom. We rely on volunteers to play an active role locally, give views, feed in information from local groups and shape local general practice via the Mersey Faculty board. The board have a number of opportunities for you to become more active with the local faculty, for example: committees, council representatives, First5 lead, AiT lead, Education advisor and Officers of the board. If this is something you would consider then please contact us.

Peer groups

Merseyside, Cheshire and IoM

Peer groups, (or support groups), are run by local GPs to support other GPs. They offer support and advice to anyone in their region, hold small clinical CPD evenings, group chats to find best practice and offer general advice to anyone who needs it.

The group leads can be contacted at any time but often run scheduled sessions that you can attend. Please see below for your local lead.

• Knowsley support group:
  Dr Adit Jain
  adit.jain@knowsleyccg.nhs.uk
• Sef10 support group:
  Dr Raj Patel
  raj.patel4@nhs.net
• Warrington Non-Principal and F5 group:
  Dr Ipsita Chaterjee
  ipschat@gmail.com
• Chester sessional GP group:
  Dr Sarah Lazorowicz
  sarah.lazarowicz@googlemail.com

If you run a support group, please let us know.
RCGP Mersey can support with venue hire and speak fee costs.

Awards and prizes

Medical Student Poster Prize 2023

The RCGP Mersey Faculty is delighted to announce the Medical Student Poster Prize 2023. This prize is open to undergraduate medical students attending the University of Liverpool and Edge Hill University in Year 3, 4 or 5 of study. We invite eligible students to submit an A1 Poster detailing an original research or quality improvement project they have undertaken in Primary Care on a Primary Care topic.

How to apply:

Please submit your poster to mersey@rcgp.org.uk by midnight on 30th September 2023. Posters may only be submitted once for consideration and may not be resubmitted in subsequent academic years.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Undergraduate student in Year 3, 4 or 5 of University of Liverpool or Edge Hill University Medical Schools at the time of entry submission.
• A1, portrait, full colour poster presenting original findings of a Research or Quality Improvement project undertaken in Primary Care.

Useful advice on the creation of scientific poster can be found on this webpage (PDF file, 216 KB). Please note: for the poster prize award at submission stage we do not require you to print your poster, however, if you are selected as a winner we will require a full size print of your poster for presentation/show at the RCGP Mersey faculty annual awards evening.

Prizes

The eligible posters will be reviewed by the RCGP Mersey Faculty awards sub-committee. The Faculty Provost or Chair will have the final say on selected winners. Individual or group entries will be accepted, however, group entries will share prize winnings equally. Three prizes will be awarded:

• First place - £300 and certificate of achievement
• Second place - £200 and certificate of achievement
• Third place - £100 and certificate of achievement

All prize winners will be invited to the RCGP Mersey Faculty Annual Awards Evening to be presented with their prize and certificate. Date and venue for the 2023 Annual Awards Evening to be confirmed for November 2023 in or near Liverpool City Centre.

The marking criteria for this prize can be found on this webpage (DOCX file, 101 KB).

Fellowship

Fellowship is an honor and mark of achievement recognising a significant contribution to:

• health and welfare of the community
• science or practice of medicine
• aims of RCGP, or any organisation which benefits general practice

Full details of applying for fellowship can be found at RCGP fellowship. If you are unsure about any part of fellowship or want to know more about the process, RCGP Mersey have a team of volunteers on hand who have been through the process themselves to answer your questions. Please contact us for more information.

Meet your faculty

Contact us

RCGP Mersey Faculty
The Outset
Sankey Street
Warrington
WA1 1NN

Email: mersey@rcgp.org.uk

Office opening hours: 08:00 to 15:00, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Closed Wednesdays.

Useful links

• Faculty byelaws (PDF file, 22 KB)