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…

As the dispute between junior doctors and the NHS continues to rumble on, we thought it would be a good idea to see how the action up to now has impacted on GP practices. While it would be easy to say it will have little or no impact, as many primary care ‘leaders’ have done,…

Professor Steven Field CBE Chief Inspector of General Practice Care Quality Commision Citygate Gallowgate NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE NE1 4PA 9th December 2015 An Open Letter to Professor Field CBE Dear Professor Field, I, along with many of my colleagues in Primary Care, am concerned regarding the proposed increase of fees paid to the Care Quality…

Much has been made in the media of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s recent speech where he promised GPs a ‘new deal’ to alleviate pressure on over-stretched services, through increased investment, reduction in bureaucracy, and the drafting in of more healthcare professionals to the areas most in need. The speech was a typically politicised mix of…

Last week the King’s Fund stirred things up somewhat when it published a no-holds-barred report stating that the recent NHS reorganisation had been a disaster and a waste of three years. The report – first published by the BBC – led to all sorts of politics and Labour calling for David Cameron to make a personal…

Are pharmacists the answer to easing practice workloads? Or can pharmacists ease practice workloads? One of the major news stories this week has been the launch of NHS England’s 10 point plan to address staff shortages in general practice. Along with incentivising GPs to postpone retirement, the plan includes piloting schemes to introduce new grades of support…

Jeremy Hunt announced on Thursday (15th January 2015) that every GP practice in the UK will receive a letter inviting them to bid for a slice of the £1bn funding made available by the chancellor for upgrading primary care facilities. The key purpose of this cash is to support PCT infrastructure, the provision of more…