Former chair of the Royal College of GPs welcomed to Lincolnshire's Out of Hours Service

Lincolnshire's Out of Hours Service has welcomed Professor Maureen Baker CBE among its supporting GPs.

Professor Baker, the former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, will be supporting the Out of Hours Service in Lincoln.

Lincolnshire's Out of Hours Service, which is run by Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS), offers urgent medical care countywide outside of normal GP opening hours during evenings, weekends and Bank Holidays. Care is provided by GPs and an experienced team of advanced clinical practitioners.

Professor Baker studied medicine at the University of Dundee, before obtaining her MD at the University of Nottingham.

Her illustrious career has seen her not only practising as a GP in Lincoln, but recognised nationally for her work in patient safety at the National Patient Safety Agency and then NHS Connecting for Health (now NHS Digital). She was elected as honourary secretary of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1999 and later chair from 2013 to 2016.

Professor Baker has recently been appointed as Chair of the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB), which defines the standards needed for good care records to improve safety and quality within health and social care.

In recognition of her services to medicine, Professor Baker was made a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2004 New Year Honours.

She has previously been listed among the Health Service Journal's top 100 clinical leaders and its list of the most influential people in the NHS.

Professor Baker said: "I am very pleased to be able to continue my clinical role in urgent and emergency care at the trust."

Dr Yvonne Owen, medical lead for Urgent Care at LCHS, said: "We are pleased and proud to be able to welcome Professor Baker, who will bring years of experience as a frontline GP and a wealth of knowledge in emergency planning and large scale healthcare.

"We continue to actively recruit new GPs to work in the Out of Hours Service and showcase the opportunities we have to work in Lincolnshire."