This year’s contract includes a new QI QOF module on staff wellbeing and retention, and we cover this topic in this month’s Practice Index podcast. A key question that emerged was whether there’s anything we can realistically do about staff wellbeing given the parlous state general practice now finds itself in. There’s something innately galling…

There’s no doubt that 2023/24 is going to be a very difficult year for practices. The contract has been imposed without inflationary pressures being funded, and at the same time, the Government and the media seem intent on setting the public against general practice. What steps can practices take to manage the year ahead? In…

The imposition of the 2023/24 contract onto general practice leaves practices in an extremely difficult position. Do they accept the imposed terms and find ways of reducing their cost base to manage the reduction in income, or do they take industrial action in an attempt to improve the terms of the contract? This is something…

Many practices struggle with receiving more calls from their patients than they can handle. There are simply not enough slots available, and the appointments that are available quickly disappear after 8am. The receptionists then spend their time trying to assuage frustrated and angry patients.  Physical queues of patients start forming outside the practice before the…

It’s never happened before, and of course it may not happen, but in the latest episode of the Practice Index Practice Manager Panel podcast, our panel reached the conclusion that, ultimately, industrial action may need to be considered. And not in the far distant future – potentially as early as next year. What’s leading us…

It was quite a year for general practice, with recovery from Covid being made harder by workforce, financial and media pressures. Throughout the year, our Practice Manager Panel focussed on the key issues facing practices, while also approaching things with, as described by Robyn Clark by last January, a “focus on the positive”. Here’s a…

In a reaction to the increasingly poor work-life balance that many are experiencing, there has been a growing movement across the globe known on social media as “quiet quitting”. Is this phenomenon about to hit the NHS, and what can managers do about it? Quiet quitting is where employees decide not to go above and…