A south London GP surgery has been rated inadequate for a second time and faces closure unless there are significant improvements, inspectors have announced. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) carried out a second inspection at Village Surgery in New Malden in February, following an initial inspection in September after which the practice was placed in…

The latest in our must-have series of guides for primary care; the Confidentiality and Data Protection Handbook [PLUS] is now available to download. Packed with 93-pages it contains everything you need to successfully manage confidentiality and data security, ensuring your organisation is fully compliant. The handbook covers all key areas including: Roles and responsibilities Guidance…

Generally, practice managers who work in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland need to give policies a little more tweaking to make them relevant to their practices. This is because the majority of the reference material that’s available, familiar and therefore used migrates the policy towards NHS England or the English regulator, the CQC. As such,…

‘Evening all’ (said in my best Dixon of Dock Green voice). You may be thinking I’ve gone slightly mad with a blog about poster police but do bear with me, it’ll be a useful read. We all know that we need to provide accessible information for our patients, be it information about the services on…

As a busy practice manager, how many times a day do members of the admin team ask you questions that start with: ‘Have you got a minute to…’, or ‘Can you just…’, or ‘How do we do…’? If this sounds all too familiar, then the Practice Index policy team may just be able to reduce…

Continuing our series of must-have guides for primary care, the Reception Manager’s Handbook is now available. Packed with 265-pages covering everything that Reception Managers, or Care Navigators, and their teams need to know to carry out their roles successfully. Topics include: Clinical and non-clinical contractual requirements Reception processes Financial matters including banking and petty cash reporting…

Since the development of the First Contact Practitioner (FCP) role in 2014, when they were primarily Musculoskeletal (MSK) FCPs, the FCP role has evolved significantly. Within general practice, there are paramedics, physiotherapists, dietitians, podiatrists and occupational therapists all working in FCP roles, some of which are funded through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS). So…