11th August 2016 Dear Mrs May Firstly, may I congratulate you on your appointment as Prime Minister. I now wait with baited breath for Mrs Clinton to become President and we will have three strong women in power! (About time too!) I write to you in my capacity as a Practice Manager working in Primary…

By Nicola Hayward To say I am a tad vexed is an understatement! You may remember a little while ago I bleated on about CQC and the whole pointless exercise that includes printing off half the rainforest so that an inspector can read through what we’re doing (because we’re not trustworthy enough to do the…

Earlier this week the flop that was the care.data initiative was finally scrapped for good. Having cost the NHS big – both in terms of money and human resource – it was decided enough was enough. While that news was surely celebrated by GP practice managers up and down the country, another data exercise was…

In the past week, the CQC has published a further 81 reports on the quality of care provided by GP practices that have been inspected. Another two practices were found to be outstanding, 61 practices were rated good, nine require improvement and, worryingly, five received inadequate ratings. Outstanding performance Leading the way with an outstanding…

We’ve all got that one patient haven’t we? The one who shouts the loudest so gets what he/she wants, regardless of the rules/procedures/protocols that we’re supposed to follow.  I’ve caved in on a few occasions with patients who’ve been put through to me to try and sort them out – and even I can’t get…

  In the last week or so, a further 79 inspection reports were published by the CQC. Of those, 59 practices were found to be good and five outstanding. This marks an upward trend in the percentage of practices receiving high scores and brings the total number of outstanding practices up to 149. Continuing our…

The much talked about General Practice Forward View – published earlier this month – confirmed that the frequency of CQC inspections is to change. Going forward, once all practices have been inspected once, most practices will receive the dreaded visit from inspectors just once every five years. This new, streamlined approach is part of moves…