The NHS is failing to adapt to escalating practice closures, which are contributing hugely to falling patient satisfaction, according to the latest evidence on the crisis in primary care. A major new study has found that funding disappears from areas with practice closures – while a second study links GP burnout to increasing rates of…

This week, NHSE have released their Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care along with a covering letter. Well, dear readers, I’ve waded through it, as I’m sure many of you will have done, and I’ll admit to being a bit confused. As is common of late, many of the announcements and ideas that…

More than 240,000 people have now successfully registered with GP practices on-line as part of a new scheme, it has been announced. On-line registration is currently available at more than 900 practices that have enrolled for a new digital register. NHS England said each online registration saves staff up to 15 minutes in administration time.…

Experts continued to give a mixed reaction to the government’s “recovery plan” for GP services yesterday – calling for more doctors to solve the problems in the sector. The plan relies on switching appointments to pharmacists and improving practice phone services – and has promised more than £500 million in funding to support this. The…

GP leaders expressed disappointment today as a “recovery plan” for general practice focused on patient access, proposing to divert thousands of appointments to pharmacies. Pharmacists will be able to issue antibiotic and antiviral treatments for a range of common conditions, including earache and UTIs together with oral contraception, it was announced. The plan was officially…

A vaccination catchup campaign in London is being stepped up after a resurgence of measles cases in the capital. The UK is facing a surge in measles cases, mainly concentrated in London, the UK Health Security Agency has warned. The agency linked the increase to continued low levels of MMR vaccine uptake. It issued its…

Practices in a district of Northern Ireland have issued a stark warning over the impact of a closure within their area. Six practices have warned the regional government that they also are “in crisis” and that general practice will be “destabilised” if they are expected to take patients from the practice that is closing in…