In 2007 two practising GPs had a dream of helping themselves and their colleagues by taking CPD from a tick box exercise to a practical tool that could really help day to day practice. They talked to a frustrated accountant who wanted to make a difference in the world. The three clinked their mugs over the kitchen table and ‘GP Update’ was born.
12 years later, a new name, 50 team members and over 15,000 primary care clinicians trained each year, Red Whale still has its roots firmly around that kitchen table. The desire to be a force for good and the ethos that drove the trio to launch is still at the heart of our business today.
Our mission is to provide you with the best quality medical education in the UK (and abroad through our Social Enterprise PCI) – creating content that you can put into practice straight away, making your life a little bit easier and enabling you to provide your patients with the best care possible.
We try to offer products that respond to the different learning styles of all primary care clinicians, at different stages in their career; from our beloved handbooks to our flagship one day face to face update courses, to online courses, award winning webinars and online resources you can access 24/7.
And whilst we can’t promise to make the long days shorter, the dark days lighter or your appointment list any less crowded, we CAN promise that we will do some of the hard work for you, cutting through the clutter and producing relevant content and tools to help you deal with the challenges you face every day and save you time and energy.
The quality of our education is our guiding principle. We are far from perfect, but we will never knowingly let our standards drop. If we accidentally make a mistake (and we do make a few), we will tell you and apologise.
We hold our customers, colleagues, suppliers and environmental concerns at the forefront of every decision we make. We strive to do better by each and every one of our stakeholders, even when it costs us more to do so.
While all that might sound a bit serious, we never take ourselves too seriously, incorporating a good dose of humour in everything we do.
Oh, and you’ve probably heard us mention this before, but we will never ever EVER take pharmaceutical company sponsorship of any kind, no exhibitors, no pharma sponsored mail shots, not even a biscuit a pen or a sticky note! And we’re shamelessly proud of it!
February 2023
PCI and Red Whale partnership to support primary healthcare systems strengthening.
Primary Care International (PCI) and Red Whale are pleased to announce a renewed partnership agreement between the two organisations. Red Whale, a founding sponsor of PCI, is one of the UK’s leading primary care medical education providers and since 2014 has supported the work of PCI as a social enterprise, to strengthen primary healthcare globally.
An ongoing PCI initiative is the PCI Academy, launched in 2021. This online, interactive learning hub was created to enhance the ability of primary care practitioners to deliver adaptive, evidence-based, quality primary care in their communities. The Academy offers a comprehensive set of interactive online courses on primary care and tools for clinicians, designed by practising clinicians, to help them improve their ability to manage patients and various health concerns.
This is enhancing our work to strengthen primary care in various parts of the world. Through the Academy, we have trained clinicians on the management of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Egypt, DRC, Ethiopia, Sudan, Jordan, Chad, Kenya, Somalia, and Thailand. We have also delivered similar training in Arabic via the platform to clinicians in North-West Syria. PCI Academy has reached over 800 healthcare professionals in over 40 countries, with more than 90% of them changing their practice as a result.
Steve Murigi, the CEO of PCI, said: “Our continued partnership with Red Whale is helping us advance primary care in resource-constrained settings around the world. The funding they provide contributes towards realizing our shared goal of equipping primary care providers everywhere with the knowledge and tools that make their work more effective, so that everyone, no matter their circumstances, can receive the quality care that they deserve.”
Red Whale aims to provide primary care clinicians in the UK with the best quality medical education - making their lives a little easier and enabling them to provide patients with the best care possible. In the same vein, they have continued to support PCI’s work.
Martin Haley, CEO of Red Whale commented “We’re delighted to continue supporting the amazing work that PCI does to support primary healthcare provision in resource poor settings. Red Whale’s mission is to support primary care to do what it does best here in the UK and it’s a privilege to continue our partnership with PCI so we can help them so the same across the wider global community.”
To find out more about PCI, visit: https://pci-360.com/
To find out more about Red Whale, visit: https://www.gp-update.co.uk/
April 2022
PCI Successfully launches their Academy
In summer 2021, PCI officially launched the PCI Academy with their inaugural online NCD course, in partnership with UNHCR. Below is some feedback from some of the primary healthcare workers who have completed the course.
Dr. Bashir Dirie Jama from Somaliland, Dr Happy Paulianne Mwete from Burundi, Dr Sila Monthe from Kenya and Edward Vukoni from Uganda all work in refugee settings and were all participants in the blended ‘Management of NCDs’ course. Over the past few months they have been working through the online modules, sharing experience and discussing challenges in the live workshops and posting questions in the virtual community of practice or WhatsApp groups. And of course leading cascade training with colleagues.
“I especially liked the focus in the course on leadership & management, and M&E. The workshops were refreshing, especially the case management, we shared experiences between countries. We gained more understanding. I recommend more of these. I have now carried out cascade training with doctors, health officers, nurses, midwives and community health workers. I followed up with some health workers at work and have seen them measuring blood pressure accurately, while some of them provided health education to diabetic cases. I am glad that my trainees have gained knowledge and skills and applied it to their patients.” (Bashir)
“The clinical skills we learnt on the course were useful and helped get me up-to-date in my knowledge of NCDs. But what interested me more was the management: the monitoring, the evaluation. That was the part that we were not doing so much in the camp. We didn’t have any action plans. We didn’t have meetings where we sat together as a team, the health team, to see how we are doing in the management, and the prevention and the follow-up of NCDs. We also need to find time to focus more on working with community leaders. And introduce them to prevention of NCDs, to see what their part is, and see how we can work together in the management of NCDs. I work with 16 nurses and will be doing cascade training with all of them. We will spend some time on the knowledge in the Clinical Guides and then we will have time to together to learn more about the monitoring, the evaluation, developing the action plans.”
“It is a great idea to cascade the knowledge to colleagues. I already felt this was going to be my approach to share the knowledge with my team in the field locations since not all of us have the opportunity to train. I supervise in 12 facilities with many clinical staff and so one person per facility will be the focal point: 12 Clinical Officers in total. Cascade training went well. I got on board our 12 Clinical Officers and we will be supporting onsite mentorship to the clinic teams. One of the Officers, Samuel, is pictured here at an outreach group giving health education on lifestyle modification to fight NCDs.” (Edward)
“NCDs are a major concern for us and proper management is crucial as we don’t get a chance to refer NCD cases as they are usually last on the priority list. Priorities are usually obstetrics and paediatrics. Once NCDs get to complications it’s hard to refer them. So, if we can mange them well here then that will be lifesaving for some people. I took the guidelines from Module 1 and started using and modifying these straight away for my setting with the drugs we had available. Joining the live workshop with people from other countries and refugee settings was eye opening. I thought some problems were unique to us. Sharing ideas and solutions was so helpful.” (Sila)
Find out more about the PCI Academy here.
Jan 2022
PCI and Red Whale partnership to support healthcare workers around the world
Primary Care International (PCI) and Red Whale are delighted to announce a renewed partnership agreement between their two organisations. As PCI’s founding sponsor, leading British medical educational provider Red Whale provided seed funding, resources and technical assistance and were instrumental to PCI’s inception in 2014. Since then PCI, a social enterprise working to strengthen primary healthcare globally, has developed new partnerships around the world, and grown in size and reach. In its role as a sister organisation, Red Whale has remained supportive throughout this time and key to the development of the social enterprise. Strengthening links between PCI and Red Whale will allow both organisations to benefit by finding opportunities to share best practice and resources across the sister organisations.
PCI have recently been working with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to strengthen clinical and community-based management of NCDs in refugee settings. They have been rolling out an NCD capacity building package for clinicians and health officials in East Africa, via the new PCI Academy.
“I especially liked the focus in the course on leadership & management, and M&E. The workshops were refreshing, especially the case management, we shared experiences between countries. I have now carried out cascade training with doctors, health officers, nurses, midwives and community health workers. I followed up with some health workers at work and have seen them measuring blood pressure accurately, while some of them provided health education to diabetic cases. I am glad that my trainees have gained knowledge and skills and applied it to their patients. Pictured here is one of the nurses in our team demonstrating a practical skill during cascade training” (Dr. Bashir Dirie Jama from Somaliland)
Now this new partnership agreement will enable PCI to further grow their work strengthening the health workforce and health systems globally.
“We really appreciate the support that Red Whale has given us since our start. This renewed partnership means we can move nearer to our aim of reaching 25,000 healthcare workers by 2025.” (Julia Beart, CEO of PCI)
In the UK, Red Whale’s aim is to provide primary care clinicians with the best quality medical education - making their lives a little bit easier and enabling them to provide patients with the best care possible. And as a socially responsible organisation, they also want to see primary care clinicians and systems supported in resource poor settings – which is why they were a founding sponsor of PCI, and why they continue to sponsor this work.
“We’re delighted to continue supporting the fantastic work that PCI does to improve primary healthcare systems and to tackle the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) around the world. Red Whale was a founding sponsor of PCI, and we’re incredibly proud to support their work!” (Martin Haley, CEO of Red Whale)
We are a small, friendly team, and we always welcome constructive feedback and suggestions, or an opportunity to talk with you. Our office hours are Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.00pm.
For information and course bookings
You can drop us an email at mail@red-whale.co.uk or phone us on 03330 093 090 (charged at the same rate as standard landline numbers starting with 01 or 02).
For postal booking forms, letters, cards and boxes of chocolates our address is:
Red Whale
University of Reading
Reading Enterprise Centre
Earley Gate
Whiteknights Road
Reading
RG6 6BU
Finally if you really can’t get enough of us you can like us of FB, follow us on Twitter and Linkedin and even subscribe to our (ever so popular) weekly updates!
FourteenFish
FourteenFish was started by a GP who was unhappy with the existing options for appraisal and re-validation. With an incredibly friendly system, mobile apps, and powerful features, FourteenFish makes preparing for your next appraisal so much easier. Red Whale Knowledge integrates seamlessly with FourteenFish to make recording CPD for your appraisal simple, so any updates you make to either Red Whale Knowledge or FourteenFish will automatically show up on both systems.
