Mike Pringle (physician)


Michael Alexander Leary Pringle CBE is a British physician and academic. He is the emeritus professor of general practice at the University of Nottingham, a past president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, best known for his primary care research on clinical audit, significant event audit, revalidation, quality improvement programmes and his contributions to health informatics services and health politics. He is a writer of medicine and fiction, with a number of publications including articles, books, chapters, forewords and guidelines.
After completing his training at the Sonning Common Practice in rural Oxfordshire, Pringle continued his general practice career at the Collingham Medical Centre, Nottinghamshire, which was one of the first practices to become computerised and where he remained until retirement.
He was an advisor to the National Health Service IT programme and strategic director and then chair of the board of PRIMIS, which was contracted by the NHS Information Authority to improve computerisation and data in primary care. He was also an elected member of the General Medical Council and deputy chair of UK Biobank.

Early life and education

Mike Pringle was born in May 1950 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. As a child, he had been inspired by his village family physician. He was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford, and then at Guy's Hospital Medical School, from where he gained his MB BS.

Career in clinical general practice

Pringle's first job was as a registrar at the Sonning Common Practice in rural Oxfordshire, with the then honorary secretary of the RCGP, John Hasler, and with Tom Stewart, as his trainer. In 1979, he became a partner in the Collingham Medical Centre, where he continued to practise, at first full-time and later job-sharing and part-time. This practice was one of the first GP practices to be computerised in the UK.
Ten years after first entering general practice training, he was appointed as senior lecturer at the University of Nottingham, and subsequently became professor of general practice at Nottingham. Eventually, his general practice career in the Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire area would span more than 30 years.

Research

Pringle's research has included primary care informatics, epidemiology, quality of care and health care evaluation. In his 1998 paper, titled "Preventing ischaemic heart disease in one general practice", he demonstrated how the reporting of risk factors for ischaemic heart disease at the Collingham Medical Centre increased with the introduction of a quality improvement programme.
Together with Colin Bradley, he is credited with developing and instituting significant event audit into primary care in the UK. The concept of SEA was established with the help of their "groundbreaking" occasional paper on the topic in 1995. In the same paper, they described its definition as "a process in which individual episodes are analysed, in a systematic and detailed way to ascertain what can be learnt about the overall quality of care, and to indicate changes that might lead to improvements". This early research on SEAs also provided evidence for both its potential and drawbacks. Pringle's view is that "everyone can learn and improve. SEA includes all team members in the pursuit of quality. It is non-judgemental and rigorous".

Health informatics

Pringle's expertise in health informatics led him to be one of several advisors to the NHS IT programme. In addition, he became strategic director of PRIMIS, a business unit of the University of Nottingham, that provides a range of primary care health informatics services to the health sector and research community, which was contracted by the NHS Information Authority to improve computerisation and data in primary care. In 2007, it won the John Perry prize of The Chartered Institute for IT.

Revalidation

In 2000, at the United Kingdom Conference of Regional Advisors, Pringle presented his introduction on the future of general practice, where he defined ways of evaluating GPs, including revalidation, accredited professional development, membership by assessment of performance, fellowship by assessment, trainer recognition and higher degrees.
In 2003, Donald Irvine, who had previously been president of the GMC, had described that discussions around revalidation in 2000 ran largely well due to the credit of two chairmen, John Chisholm of the BMA's General Practitioner's Committee and Pringle of the RCGP.
In his 2005 John Fry lecture, titled "Revalidation of doctors: the credibility challenge" and organised by The Nuffield Trust in London on 8 June 2005, he proposed what should be included in revalidation.

Royal College of General Practitioners

Prior to 1989, fellowship of the RCGP was granted by a committee following a decision made on "reputation and achievement". Pringle was one of the first GPs to undertake Fellowship by Assessment and also led its development.
Between 1998 and 2001, he was chairman of the RCGP. He became chair of the RCGP Trustee Board from 2009 to 2012 and RCGP revalidation clinical lead from 2008 to 2012.
In 2012, taking over from Iona Heath, he became the RCGP's 23rd president, taking up the position in November 2012 for a three-year term.
In 2013, as part of the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the RCGP, Pringle addressed an audience with his reflection of past years. He covered the introduction of audit, led by Donald Irvine, the establishment of the internal market and fundholding, the 1990 GP Contract, computerisation and the RCGP's role in the SAS siege of the Iranian Embassy in 1980, when the SAS drilled a hole in the RCGP wall.
As the RCGP's president in 2015, Pringle unveiled a blue plaque in honour of A. J. Cronin's life and work.

Other roles

In 2001, he took on the role of co-chair of the NHS Diabetes National Service Framework.
He has been an elected member of the GMC, elected deputy chair of UK Biobank in 2005, and was on the board of trustees at Arthritis Research UK and at the Picker Institute.
With his wife Nickie, he is a patron of the charity 'Home Start' in Newark. He is also the chair of the charity 'Change Grow Live', which began with working with ex-offenders.
He helps with the primary care development project at the Collingham Healthcare Education Centre and was also a director of QResearch.
Upon retiring from practice and the University of Nottingham, he became an emeritus professor of general practice.

Awards and honours

In 1995, at the annual general meeting of the RCGP, Pringle was awarded the John Fry Medal for "outstanding research in primary care by a young member". In 2001 he was appointed a CBE for services to medicine.

Selected publications

Pringle is the author of a number of articles and books. He has also written fiction.

Articles