Moving to Cardiff from London | Relocating to Cardiff

Calum: There are a couple of things I like about the Welsh working culture. It feels to me as though the partnership model is stronger in Wales than in London. More newly qualified GPs want to become partners in their surgery and take on responsibility for its policy and direction, rather than just be employees who draw a salary. And in Wales, you have this idea of 'clusters' where GP practices in the same area come together to pool their resources and provide joined-up primary care. It means I can call upon, say, physiotherapists or mental -health nurses who are effectively part of my own team.

Jayne: I suppose our jobs are unique in that you can go and practise almost anywhere. But we wanted to be near a big city like Cardiff with a teaching university in Cardiff University, so that we still had opportunities for medical education and career development. Since moving to Penarth, we've both found interesting work opportunities that we can do alongside our work as GPs. Before the pandemic, I was working in sexual health at Cardiff Royal Infirmary alongside my role as a GP. Although I have since finished working there, the job helped develop my interest in women's health. I'm now the women's health lead at my GP practice, where I've set up a menopause clinic. The hope is that we can roll out similar clinics, first across Cardiff and then possibly across Wales. 

Calum: I was working as a GP in Cardiff, doing a lot of locum work as well as working with Macmillan to help improve the standard of cancer care delivered by GPs across the region. Now, I'm a partner at a GP surgery in Penarth and a clinical cancer lead for the health board, where I work with the clinicians to help deliver and improve cancer care

Jayne: We're both really happy with the opportunities that we've had since being here. I love being a GP, but having another role alongside it keeps things varied and allows me to have a specific area of interest. It's really hard to know how our working lives would have been different in London. Because Cardiff is smaller than London, and Wales is smaller than England, we can have a greater involvement when it comes to innovation, changing things proactively and filling needs gaps. I don't feel I could’ve done that in London so easily. Here, we can have a bigger impact than we might’ve had in London. 

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