I founded UPstream in 2008 to reflect the approach I took over many years as a jobbing hospital doctor and then GP. It worked for those I saw professionally and it worked for me. It is a charitable organisation and Company Ltd by Guarantee.

The approach consisted of resolutely travelling UPstream as far as possible to help people to deal with the causes of their problems and predicaments, rather than simply seeing them as patients with diagnoses and becoming tied up in medical corsetry. Going UPstream means being tough on the causes of problems and predicaments and not just working on down- stream consequences.

UPstream working is enhanced by:
• Identifying problems and solving them in partnership
• Building a healing relationship together, underpinned by therapeutic rapport
• Discovering what works best and having fun when appropriate
• Using any, and especially medical, jargon with great care and constantly clarifying it
• Reflecting on your clinical practice and duty to serve: "everything I do is driven by you"
• Making time in the present to save time later
• Doing something sometimes, but sitting and listening always: “don’t just do something, sit there”
• Taking care of yourself as a professional carer

We are all people first and foremost. Being a doctor is what I did and do; it is not who I was or am. Being a patient with a diagnosis is what we do when we are ill; it is not who we are.. No one is a diabetic or an asthmatic - they are a person with a diagnosis of diabetes or asthma. We are all and always far more than the sum of our parts (however well or badly they are working). UPstream’s work is based on the fact that we are all “wired for health”.