Dr Ellen Fallows

Ellen is a GP partner and the Diabetes Lead in her practice in Oxfordshire. Her interest in lifestyle medicine comes from having seen a number of her patients put their chronic diseases into remission with primary care supported lifestyle-change.

With a foundation in evidence-based medicine from Oxford University, she is active in primary care research at her practice, including trials using low carbohydrate/low calorie diets to treat hypertension, obesity and diabetes as part of the DROPLET and DIAMOND studies. She has just started a GP Fellowship to research the effectiveness of group consultations for diabetes care with the support of Professor Fraser Birrell.

Ellen is passionate about improving education in the area of lifestyle medicine both for patients and health care professionals. She is working with her local council and CCG to deliver the aims of “Bicester Health New Town”. As part of this initiative, she has helped deliver large-scale education sessions for patients on the role of exercise and diet in diabetes but also COPD. She is one of the first GPs in her area to start Group Consultations, train a practice “social prescriber” and to support her surgery to become a Park Run practice. She is part of the Alchester Medical Group and Montgomery House Surgery steering group developing a 60,000 patient health care facility which she hopes will prioritise supporting patients to be able to make lifestyle changes.

She is working to bring together like-minded health professionals in Oxfordshire to learn about motivating, evidence-based lifestyle interventions. She believes that lifestyle medicine can save GPs from burn-out by empowering all of us to live healthier lives; being part of the BSLM is a great way to spread the word!”