Apart from wondering whether you should have taken on the job in the first place, what other factors should you consider on commencing your new role? This checklist is intended to help you through the quagmire of challenges you might face! Contract of employment: Have you received a formal, written job offer along with detailed

Firstly, I should say that locums come in many forms, not just doctors. I’ve recently come across a locum practice manager, a locum nurse practitioner as well as a locum healthcare assistant, a locum pharmacist and even agency reception and secretarial staff, all of whom were highly skilled and beneficial to the practice. However, all

‘Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.’ Robin Sharma More specialist medical accountancy firms are now able to provide a much broader service offering that includes, in some instances, assisting GP practices with managing change. As one of these lucky change consultants, here are my favourite tips to

Being a practice manager, and possibly a new one, you need to get into the world of usernames, passwords, code numbers, portals and logins. You can do very little without a whole series of passwords; but the danger is that you’ll use a standard or obvious password and just once in a while change the

One thread writer recently asked for help figuring out why three lots of records had been received for patients with the same family name, but with the same NHS number. My answer was to check the date of birth shown on all the documents. I recall one specific case where three male members of one

The average patient list per doctor is said to be in the region of 1,800 patients. However, my experience of working in a registration department suggests that around 600 patients may have moved on, unknown to the practice, or be in the process of registering elsewhere. The NHS income from 600 patients is significant so

Supporting people to play a greater role in their own health and care clearly has benefits for GP practices – not least because it frees up time – which is why the NHS detailed Self Care and Management as the ninth action in its Releasing Capacity in General Practice initiative. For practices, this idea is