Developing the team: Physician Associate Success The idea of utilising physician associates to ease the chronic GP shortage has been floating around for a while now. It’s a topic we covered on the Practice Index blog in 2017 – you can find the article here – and there has been plenty of talk before and…

When I applied for my first practice management job in 2003, my husband said he’d eat his hat if I got it. At that point, I didn’t even realise that practices were independent businesses; I’d never thought about how my doctor’s surgery was run – why would I? Until then, I’d worked at the BBC…

The big talking point of the last week has undoubtedly been the publication of the latest NHS Long Term Plan. The 136-page, 10-year plan sets out how a £20.5bn annual budget increase promised last year will be spent. A number of key areas are in line for a funding boost including the digitisation of care…

The last 12 months have been challenging, to say the least, for practice managers. Everything from new regulations and budgetary pressures through to burnout and HR have all been among the major talking points. But which stories were the most read on Practice Index in 2018? Here’s a round-up of the top 10. GDPR for GP…

Gin, Champagne, a giant box of truffles?!….. No, what every Practice Manager REALLY wants for Christmas is Practice Index PLUS! Don’t litter their office with another wall calendar, or a gift voucher that sits in the envelope for the rest of the year. What your Practice Manager really needs in their working life is more time,…

It was John F Kennedy who famously said, “There is nothing more certain and unchanging than uncertainty and change”. Those words seem to sum up the life in GP practices pretty well. They also apply very accurately to an area of practice management that’s receiving more attention at the moment, which is succession planning, not…

There are various reasons which prompt GP practices to think about merging but the number of mergers is increasing. With the move towards delivering primary care at scale and increasing pressures on GPs, working collaboratively is certainly something for practices to consider. Whatever the motivation, merging GP practices is a complex process. A solution is…