During July, Practice Index brought you lots of fantastic content to keep your mind off the constant rain! If you missed anything, you can catch up here!

So, we’re talking about workplace and wellbeing now, are we? – By Susi O’Brien – This year’s Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) from NHS England includes quality improvement requirements relating to ‘workplace and wellbeing’. But what do these terms mean? Read more

Pay rises – what pay rises?! – By Paula the PM – With the announcement of pay rises for doctors this year, what does this mean for our practices? You’d be forgiven for thinking this sounds quite straightforward, if a bit on the expensive side, as a practice. Is it really all that easy, though? What really gets my goat is that despite the announcement, which will send our staff into a frenzy about when they might be able to spend some of their hard-earned cash, we don’t have any visibility about how we might be able to pay for it. Read more

From walking to parkrun – By Claire Houston – Could you see yourself running a 5k distance? Six weeks ago, I couldn’t run for 30 seconds. I’m now just about to try and run a 5k race for the Practice Index parkrun pledge. You might remember I talked about the benefits of walking in my blog ‘Walk your way to wellbeing’. Since then, things have moved on a bit! Read more

Using the Bradford Factor – If you’ve worked in the NHS for any length of time, you’ll probably have heard about the Bradford Factor. It’s a simple formula that allows employers to monitor short-term sickness absence, and it’s an important tool in the absence management arsenal. It’s a weighted system as regular short absences tend to be harder to manage operationally than a longer spell of absence. Read more

HR Masterclass – Module 9 (Managing Leave) – There are a number of different types of leave that managers working in general practice have to navigate. This module covers the various types of leave you will encounter, the legal considerations you need to make, and the best ways of dealing with leave requests to help support your employees and protect your service. Read more

Care Navigation training – Effective care navigation helps people understand what options are available to them, enabling them to access the most appropriate service to meet their health and social care needs. With the recent news that the NHS is funding one person per practice, what about training for the rest of your team? It’s important that the people handling patient enquiries are trained to understand care navigation. That’s where we can help. Read more

July’s podcast: The Practice Index Podcast: Episode 33 – NHS Long Term Workforce Plan

New and updated resources [PLUS]

• Contract of employment – Employees (Scotland)
• Receptionists’ triage policy
• Cleaning standards and schedule policy
• Significant event and incident reporting policy (Wales)
• Dementia guidance document
• Interview pack – Salaried GP
• Anti-bribery and counter fraud policy
• Roles in general practice
• Acutely unwell under 5’s guidance document 

Popular threads

• Complaints handling
• Freedom of Information
• 6% practice wide funding for staff; what is actually going on?
• Rude patients
• Do you think the way you calculate annual leave works fairly for all your staff?
• Staff pay rises
• Flowers in reception
• Time required for ECG and blood test

HUB updates

New:

The HUB Library – A new feature to store files and create pages

Updated: 

• Impersonate feature: A new red bar at the top of the page makes it even more clear when impersonating a user
• Job roles page: You can now use the filters at the top to only show job roles with or without staff assigned to them
• Completed elsewhere icon: You will see a new CE icon next to courses marked as Completed Elsewhere
• Course library: You can view the course library as a table view and export this view as a PDF all from the course library page
• CQC Manager: You can now add multiple files to a piece of evidence
• Staff list export: Job role/s and team/s information is now included in the staff list spreadsheet export
• Significant events: New tick box option called “Reported to relevant body?” with a “Details” text box
• Significant Events Manager, Complaints Manager and Risk Register Manager: New “Notes” text box field
• Significant Events Manager, Checks Manager and Complaints Manager: New file/s upload field
• Risk Register Manager: New “Mitigating actions” field
• Complaints Manager: You can now edit the due date
• Risk Register Manager and Checks Manager: New “Category” field
• Policy Manager: You can now run reports on just policies marked as mandatory (M) and new “Notes” field
• New search box in the orange bar at the top of the HUB. Search your courses, policies, library and staff
• All staff can now see a staff list https://hub.practiceindex.co.uk/staff.

Help Centre – A compilation of FAQs, useful videos, and information on our HUB products.
HUB weekly support sessions – Join one of our weekly sessions to discover more about the HUB and what if can offer.

If you’d like to know more about Practice Index PLUS and any products in the HUB, you can book a demo here.