Even though the GP contract for this year has been billed as the imposition of Year 5 of the existing five-year contract agreed in 2019, the reality is that it contains some significant changes. So significant, in fact, that the government had to take these changes through parliament to put them in place. Essentially, practices…

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…

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…

There’s a dichotomy between the resources that are being put into general practice and the national messages that are being given about the service. Is this deliberate, and is general practice the victim of some elaborate plot against it? Or is it simply the ineptitude and lack of understanding of those making the decisions? The…