Recruiting new practice managers and keeping the good ones is a major problem for GP practices as the demands of the job continue to develop and change, and the attraction of better-paid jobs looms. I attribute my survival in the post from 1992 to 2010 to an ability to smile in adversity, a positive attitude,…

General practice continues to change and develop beyond all recognition as the 2019/20 GP Contract attempts to enforce the coming together of practices in Primary Care Networks with patient populations of between 30,000 and 60,000 – enough to support a ‘district hospital’. The choice to merge with others has been sparked by the difficulties in…

Two London practices were heavily criticised by inspectors yesterday and rated as inadequate. The Bermondsey Spa Medical Centre was unable to show that staff had the “skills, knowledge and experience” to carry out their roles, inspectors said. The medical centre, with three partners, was ordered to suspend surgical procedures last July for a period of…

Given the pressures faced by practice managers in today’s primary care environment, any help in driving practice performance in the right direction is welcome. That could explain why plenty of practices are turning to (or are already utilising) practice champions. Practice champions can be really valuable in supporting service improvement, running groups for patients and…

“Audit is the process of critically and systematically assessing our own professional activities with a commitment to improving personal performance and ultimately the quality and/or cost-effectiveness of patient care” Although I’d normally avoid clinical audits like the plague, there are ways in which practice managers and their staff can help doctors carry out ‘administrative’ audits…

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…

Imagine you work at a practice where you only ever receive comments, compliments or suggestions to improve your working practices. Your patients only want to see you to tell you how good your team is; they send thank-you cards and bring gifts as a way of showing their appreciation for the service they receive. Okay,…