I had a holiday once… it was a while ago, I remember it vaguely. I got up later than 6am and I drank tea in bed while watching the sun shine through the emerald tall trees outside. I had leisurely walks. I climbed and I went swimming. I skated and I played tennis. At night…

Part of a Practice Manager’s remit is to record Significant or Critical Events in order to encourage good practice and prevent such events from happening again. However, Significant and Critical are two separate things and one has to decide whether an event is approaching, or has reached a catastrophic or dangerous level. To illustrate the…

Nurses could be used to tackle the shortage of GPs, according to a right-leaning think-tank today. According to a report from Reform, nurses could take on about half the appointments in primary care. Reform says nurses currently handle a third of appointments in practices. But, it argues, only a third of people who make appointments…

GPs and their staff should take regular breaks to ensure patient safety, according to a new campaign. The campaign has been launched by the Royal College of GPs, which is concerned that practices are squeezing more and more patients into the day. A poster circulated to all practices in the UK warns GPs and their…

As the dispute between junior doctors and the NHS continues to rumble on, we thought it would be a good idea to see how the action up to now has impacted on GP practices. While it would be easy to say it will have little or no impact, as many primary care ‘leaders’ have done,…

As the beleaguered general practice sector continues to fight to save itself, isn’t it about time the powers at be started listening to Practice Managers? At a time when GPs are departing their profession in huge numbers, the NHS is imposing unwanted and impractical agendas on primary care and funding is being stretched, PMs are…

GPs in England are spending longer on consultations in spite of seeing increasing number of patients weekly, according to a major study published today. Researchers at Oxford University say that workloads for GPs and practice nurses have increased by 16% in just seven years. They found that GPs on average had a 13.67% increase in…