An urgent appeal has been issued to GPs to help staff a national clinical assessment phone-line. The service, known as the CCAS, takes referrals from NHS 111 and needs doctors to undertake two four-hour sessions a week, according to an email circulated by NHS England. As the plight of Prime Minister Boris Johnson highlights the…

GP practices – as is the case with all healthcare organisations across the globe – are currently trying to deal with unprecedented pressures. This, in turn, is putting staff under greater pressure than ever – which is why practices are being urged to consider the mental health and wellbeing of their staff. “There’s no escaping…

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) process can be a bit of a minefield in primary care as one wrong step and it could be game over. Challenges arise as the checks required vary dependent on the role. Ensuring you correctly complete all the regulatory stuff is vital, as we don’t want our practice to…

A practice has had to apologise after posting ‘do not resuscitate’ forms to a number of patients along with a “frank and realistic” letter. Llynfi surgery, in Maesteg near Port Talbot, said in the letter that signing the form would ensure that emergency services would not be called and resuscitation not attempted “in the event…

NHS managers are seeking to prevent doctors from speaking out about protective equipment shortages, it has been alleged. The Doctors’ Association reported multiple instances of doctors being told not to comment on social media or talk to the press.Two GPs have been told to stop working rather than “frightening” patients with concerns about lack of…

The government was struggling to keep up with medical concerns today after the deaths of three doctors from Covid-19 infection. GP Dr Habib Zaidi, aged 76, from Essex, became the first doctor to die from the virus last week and he was followed over the weekend by two hospital doctors. It came as deaths of…

“We live in strange times. We also live in strange places.” Those words of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, seem more profound than ever before in these days of the coronavirus pandemic. The world as we know it has been turned upside down incredibly quickly – especially for healthcare professionals –…