Association of University Teachers of General Practice to the Society of Academic Primary Care

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It is 2 years since we wrote trailing the completion of an archive about the setting up some 50 years ago of the then Association of University Teachers of General Practice (AUTGP), and its subsequent evolution to the Society of Academic Primary Care (SAPC) in 2000.¹

The archive has now been completed, and the introduction to it was published online in four weekly instalments in bjgplife.com from 20 April of this year. The archive can be accessed through Heather Heath, the College Archivist, at heritage@rcgp.org.uk. Much of its referenced material is already available in digital format, and more will be added shortly.

At this difficult time for our profession, strengthening the identity of general practice as a university discipline seems one practical approach to addressing the systemic problems of recruitment and retention of GPs that are presently adversely affecting the NHS. Since the millennium, even the titles of departments of general practice have now all been lost in the name of multidisciplinarity. Similarly, the identity of general practice as an independent research discipline has suffered as various iterations of Research Assessment Exercise/Research Excellence Framework have looked for emphasis on theme-based research as against the former focus on disciplinary identity.

The introduction to the archive raises the possibility that the title of SAPC itself may have had an unintended negative influence on the evolution of general practice in our medical schools.