Dealing with difficult patients at the reception desk and in the waiting room is, like it or not, part and parcel of your job as a Practice Manager. It’s your responsibility to demonstrate confident and compassionate handling of difficult patients, displaying techniques your team – especially newer recruits – can learn and gain self-assurance from.…

Following on from previous Practice Index blogs that have focused on staffing levels and ratios of staff to numbers of patients, this week we’re concentrating on the number of GP appointments per 1,000 patients and what practices can do to ensure they’re offering the best possible access to their patients. Plenty of figures are available…

More than 90% of the UK population use a mobile and over 60% use a smart phone according to Ofcom. Using digital communications means you can easily check the health status of patients for smoking and automate responses back into the patient’s record. You can give your patients greater access and choice allowing them to get the information…

One of the questions Practice Index was asked by a practice manager recently related to staffing numbers and whether or not there was a formula for the correct number of staff to patients. The honest answer is that there isn’t one, although we can look at statistical data to find out what the average staff:patient…

With the raft of changes to GP contracts set to come into force on 1st April, this week’s Practice Index blog looks at changes being made (and some that already have) to the Patient Participation Group Directed Enhanced Service. What’s happening to this initiative? Originally introduced to incentivise GP practices to establish patient participation groups (PPGs),…

It has been reported this week that NHS England is considering allowing CCGs to handle patient complaints about GPs, following criticism of the current system by a parliamentary committee. The House of Commons Health Committee highlighted examples of primary care complaints from Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly being passed to a call centre…

Practices across the UK are being pushed beyond breaking point as recent figures show a further increase in patients registering at practices already struggling to cope. Some medical professionals are now calling for a one-off registration payment to be charged to new patients as a means to alleviate some of the drain on resources this…