Rebecca shares her NHS story

Dr Rebecca Hall, GP, Glastonbury Surgery is part of Glastonbury Festival celebration event. She shares her NHS memories.

I love being a GP – it’s a massive privilege to be part of people's lives when they are at their most vulnerable. I love the connection with patients, learning from them and being inspired by them.

Currently I work as a GP in Glastonbury, in the long covid clinic and for the Somerset ME/CFS service.

We are very lucky in Somerset to have a rich and diverse community and landscape. I love exploring what makes my patients happy and working out together how we can build on this…. whether it is knitting premature baby hats, growing broccoli, singing in a rock choir or practicing mindfulness while strolling through a bird reserve at sunset.  I am very lucky to sing in a local choir and grow Romanesco cauliflowers and both of these sustain me in my NHS roles.

Over the past 10 years, my practice has focused more on empowering and enabling patients to make the changes they want to see in their lives. I have found my place alongside the brilliant social prescribers and health coaches who make such a huge difference to the lives of our patients. I am inspired to practice a more sustainable model of healthcare where we work alongside patients to support them, while also allowing them to make informed choices.

After training in Cambridge and Edinburgh, I worked in Scotland and then moved South following a stint in Rural Zambia.  I had always enjoyed the bigger picture in medicine/ health and eventually did a masters in sexual Health and HIV.  Working in sexual health clinics in Somerset and Wiltshire, while also working as a GP in Frome, I was lucky enough to witness the evolution of the brilliant social prescribing work of Health Connections Mendip.

Every day, I can see how practicing a more holistic patient-centred healthcare provides the best answers for the patient and is the most sustainable for our future NHS. It is better for the patient, the healthcare practitioner and the planet. Increasingly, we talk about a greener NHS of the future (well that future is now).  I believe that as we move towards a new greener vision of the world, we also need to be able to imagine a greener patient-centred NHS and know that we are building an inspiring and sustainable NHS for all our futures.