Everton In The Community Appoints GP

Everton in the Community (EitC) has made an important new signing for the Liverpool 4 community by appointing a GP who will be in situ at The People’s Hub one day a week, providing local residents with advice and guidance about leading a healthier lifestyle.

GP Christopher Pritchard, from Sunlight Group Practice in Wirral, will be working with the Club’s official charity from Wednesday 11 September to offer his services to adults in the local community as well as EitC participants and staff and will be focussing on primary care, mental health, disease prevention and public health promotion.

Recruiting a GP for the local community and its participants is a first for a Premier League charitable arm, and the 12-month GP fellowship has been funded by Health Education England. The Liverpool ward of County is one of the most socio-economically deprived areas in the UK and Everton in the Community is committed to improving the quality of life for local residents and families.

Working alongside GP Christopher Pritchard and Health Education England, EitC will work to address and tackle health inequalities across Liverpool 4, with people from the local area often experiencing high rates of drug and alcohol misuse with associated mental health problems as well as higher rates of heart disease and mortality from cancer and other related illnesses.

Everton in the Community has a diverse range of well-established programmes that already offer support to individuals living in the local community, and the introduction of a GP at The People’s Hub in Spellow Lane, close to Goodison Park, will see the charity expand on those projects already developed and also develop new and innovative ways of creating new projects and future healthcare planning.

EitC's Director of Health and Sport, Michael Salla, said: “It is an important move by the charity to offer the services of a GP on-site at our People's Hub to better serve our local community by ensuring high-quality health care provision is more accessible and joined up with our existing health programmes.”

GP Christopher Pritchard added: “The opportunity to work alongside Everton in the Community to provide primary care support is a unique role and support a community with some of the greatest needs in terms of healthcare and I am honoured to become a part of the team and help with existing programmes and developing new ones.

“Everton Football Club and Everton in the Community are leading the way in using the power of sport to help improve the health and wellbeing of its local community and this will hopefully become a model that other clubs around the country will adopt to help their local communities.”

GP Christopher Pritchard will be based at The People’s Hub every Wednesday from 11 September. Appointments are available on a drop-in basis with a waiting area available. Prescriptions are not available.