The Modern Guide to GP Consulting: Six S for Success

What Happens in a GP Consultation?

General practice asks clinicians to build trust, gather information, negotiate decisions and close a plan—often in ten minutes. The Modern Guide to GP Consulting: Six S for Success takes that everyday challenge seriously. Written by Alex Watson, a GP and GP trainer, and David Gillespie, an actor and corporate coach, it examines the consultation as a communication event as much as a clinical one.

The result is a practical, readable guide rather than a dense academic textbook. Its six-part framework gives GPs a shared language for the skills that shape a productive appointment, whether the patient is anxious, frustrated, talkative, silent, or all of those things before the door has closed.

The Six S Framework

The book is structured around six connected ideas, each explored with explanation, case stories, key points and a practice exercise.

• Status — understanding how physical, vocal and emotional signals shape the balance of a consultation.
• Story — helping patients tell their story, including the first minute, listening signals, hidden worries and cultural context.
• Summarising — checking that what the doctor heard matches what the patient meant, from antibiotic requests to lists of problems.
• Sharing — discussing uncertainty, managing problems rather than labels, and handling differences of opinion.
• Securing — making plans stick through telephone consulting, home visits, time management, access issues, record-keeping and part-time working.
• Sanity — protecting focus, confidence and wellbeing under pressure, with interviews on burnout prevention and perspective.

Learning from Real Consultations

Each chapter uses short stories drawn from practice. A patient who seems to want antibiotics; a consultation that changes direction when one more problem emerges; a specialist’s viewpoint that shifts the plan; a home visit where time and trust are scarce. These scenarios are not decoration. They show how communication choices play out when the waiting room is full and the clock is running.

The exercises at the end of each section turn the ideas into something a clinician can try, reflect on, and discuss with colleagues or trainees.

More Than Clinical Technique

The final section, Sanity, steps back from patient-facing technique to consider the doctor’s own resilience. Dialogues with Dr Chris Shambrook and Dr Tim Anstiss, alongside reflections from the authors, address pressure, confidence, focus and burnout. This is not a side issue in general practice; it is part of sustaining good care over a career. The forewords by Professor Abdol Tavabie and Sir Edward Clay frame the book for clinical readers and, more broadly, for professionals who need to engage closely with people they do not know personally.

Who May Find It Useful

GP trainees preparing for consultations, established GPs wanting to refresh their communication skills, GP trainers and educators, and primary care teams will find practical value here. The writing is clear enough for readers new to the subject, but the themes are substantial enough for experienced clinicians. Anyone who works in a role where a short conversation must carry trust, clarity and follow-through may recognise the challenges described.

A Guide to Keep Within Reach

This is a book about the human side of general practice: how to notice, listen, summarise, share decisions, secure a plan and stay sane while doing it. It offers a calm, useful framework for the conversations that make up a GP’s working day.