With GP practices now rated as Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate following CQC inspections – and having to publicly display their rating from April – the pressure on achieving top marks is arguably greater than ever. So what is the CQC looking for during inspections and how can practices ensure they score highly? The…

You may have heard about Shared Parental Leave which is coming into effect on 5th April this year. Employees are now entitled to a whole host of different types of family leave, some of which are changing on 5th April, some of which are not, and it’s easy to get confused. So here’s a helpful…

For so many employees, meetings can all too easily feel like wasted time – taking us away from our ever-increasing jobs list. But small adjustments can turn your weekly staff meeting into a productive event and a team-building exercise in one. Which is what they should be. 1.      Set an agenda Meetings that run on…

Last week the King’s Fund stirred things up somewhat when it published a no-holds-barred report stating that the recent NHS reorganisation had been a disaster and a waste of three years. The report – first published by the BBC – led to all sorts of politics and Labour calling for David Cameron to make a personal…

In an attempt to improve patient contact with GP practices, NHS Bradford City CCG and NHS Bradford Districts CCG are funding training courses to train receptionists in customer care. The idea is to help staff “make each patient feel valued and at ease” and is part of a drive to improve patients’ experience of primary…

The NHS Bolton CCG board has revealed that GP practices are to benefit from £95 per patient as part of the ‘Bolton Quality Contract’. The CCG expect practices to meet a number of quality standards in return for the investment. This will occur from April, with the CCG set to invest approximately £3.4 million in…

From May, practice managers have another piece of admin to worry about – the Workforce Minimum Data Set (wMDS). All practices in England have been asked to supply data on their staff, including recruitment, vacancies, absences and personal details, such as date of birth, National Insurance number and gender. The intention of this data collection…