Access to appointments tends to go hand-in-hand with patient satisfaction. At a time when patient demand is higher than ever before and many practices are struggling to fill GP vacancies, is there such a thing as the perfect balance of same day and future appointment booking? The answer is, of course, no as too many…

Burnout of all staff – not just GPs – is a real concern for practices up and down the country. An incredible four out of every ten GPs have taken or expect to take time off because of burnout as a result of increasing workloads and intense scrutiny, according to a survey by Pulse magazine.…

Practice managers work in primary care, and they manage the overall running of GP surgeries. Practice administrators are responsible for various medical administrative duties such as registering patients, booking appointments and ensuring that all the information is stored correctly and filed accordingly. How ‘in charge’ are you? In a medical practice, the doctors who own the practice select…

Access to general practice has been a hot topic recently, with political parties vying to promise more appointments and enhanced GP availability. Amidst this debate, NHS England has published a timely guide to help GP teams better understand, manage and align demand with capacity in their practices. How to align capacity with demand in general…

Many in general practice dread the first weeks in January because we just know things are going to be bad. But why is this? Is it really inevitable, and is there anything we can do to stop it being quite so tough? The starting point is to understand why so many people come through the…

The NHS Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, commits to every patient having the right to be offered digital-first primary care by 2023/24. The various commitments that make up this plan have been introduced gradually every year through the GP Contract since 2019/20, which means GP practices should, among other new requirements, now offer an…

In this month’s HR clinic, Robyn Clark (aka JacksonR) and Susi O’Brien (HR Help advisor) explored the challenge of managing staff who are on long-term sick leave. Here is a summary of the questions we received, and the answers given. How long can someone be off before it’s fair to dismiss them? Great question! This…