Cloud phones hit practice budgets

The BMA has warned that practices are facing rising costs while trying to implement cloud-based telephony.

Implementation was included in the GP contract as a key factor in helping practices handle appointments. But some practices are facing huge increases in the costs of phone systems. The BMA has warned that practices are getting no help with rising costs in spite of the new services being provided through the NHS England Better Purchasing Framework.

Dr David Wrigley, Deputy Chair of the BMA GP Committee for England, said: “Our concerns have long been ignored, and instead we’ve been told in meetings that costs for practices when changing to these services would not increase. This could not be further from the truth for many GPs across the country. Some are seeing rises of 300% to their current telephone system costs. We cannot expect GP practices across the country to cover these significant additional costs without much-needed support to help them manage the transition.”

Primary care needs political energy

Directing funding, staff and “political energy” towards primary care are key to solving the problems of the NHS, according to the King’s Fund report, which highlights 30 years of failure to implement policies of moving care closer to home.

The report shows how the proportion of DoH spending on primary care has fallen in the last seven years from 8.9% to 8.1%. This contrasts with practices handling 34,000 more appointments daily than five years ago. The report says that more hospitals are “not the answer” to overcrowding in hospitals; instead, staff should get incentives to work in primary care through pay, status and career progression together with mandatory placements for clinicians and leaders.

Fund Chief Executive Sarah Woolnough commented: “The answer to over-crowded hospitals is not more hospitals. Despite this being well understood for many years, there is now a higher proportion of the NHS budget and staff going into hospital services. At the same time, there has been a slow erosion of capacity and confidence in primary and community care… To achieve an effective and sustainable health and care system, politicians and national leaders need to embark on a radical and wholesale refocusing of the health and care system towards primary and community services.”

Childcare problems hit practice staff

Parents working in general practice are finding it “almost impossible” to manage work with the childcare options available to them.

Some doctors and nurses reported the cost of childcare being more than their earnings, in a survey conducted by the BMA. According to the survey, which included 95 GPs and 14 nurses among nearly 600 respondents, some doctors are leaving their jobs while others have altered plans to have children. 90% of respondents were women.

Dr Latifa Patel, BMA Workforce Lead, said: “It does not make economical sense for the government to sit back and watch droves of much-needed doctors suffer from stress and require sick leave or leave the profession altogether due to a lack of childcare options.”

Project to find ways of improving vaccine uptake

The latest upsurge in measles cases has caused NHS England to announce 12 new “demonstrator” sites aimed at testing new approaches to vaccination programmes.

Royal College of GPs Chair, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, said: “We know that where vaccination programmes are successful, general practice has played a key role in their delivery – so, it will be important for any new programmes to work closely with local GP practices, drawing on the unique experience of GPs and their teams.”

Practice leaders have offered to work “closely” with this new national project aimed at improving the uptake of vaccines.

Waiting lists fall slightly

NHS waiting lists fell slightly in December in spite of doctor strikes and major pressures on hospitals. The list stood at 7.6 million, a reduction of 6,200, according to NHS England.

The data shows that January saw a record number of hospital emergency attendances: 2.23 million. Meanwhile practices reported a slight reduction in consultations for flu-like illness at the beginning of the month, reaching 9.6 per 100,000 people.