This report is a flexible summary, with the aim of sharing and highlighting a wide range of data and policy information relating to London general practice published in a given week. Where we view information to be of significant interest it is reproduced directly below the links to make the key points quicker to digest.
Please feel free to share any useful stats/links you think we could include in future reports.
Official bodies
NHS Digital
- All recent data releases can be seen here.
- Directions: Guide to the changes to primary care premises policy [11/11].
- Letter: Evolution of our operating model [13/11].
- Letter: Improving the working lives of doctors in training [14/11].
Department of Health and Social Care
- Press release: Secretary of State pledges to contain NHS agency spend [11/11].
- Press release: Failing NHS managers’ pay clampdown [11/11].
- Health and Social Care Secretary to set out measures in speech at NHS Providers annual conference.
- Press release: Zero tolerance for failure under package of tough NHS reforms [13/11].
- Press release: Birth defects prevented by fortifying flour with folic acid [14/11].
- New legislation being introduced today will require millers and flour producers to fortify non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid from the end of 2026.
- Guidance: DHSC public appointments: 2024 to 2025 [14/11].
- Guidance: Adult Social Care Learning and Development Support Scheme [15/11].
UK Health Security Agency
- Guidance: Rabies: risks for travellers [12/11].
- Guidance: Public health impact of drought: advice for the public [13/11].
- News: Antibiotic resistant infections continue to rise [14/11].
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
- Guidance: Implementation of medical devices future regime [14/11].
- News: The MHRA seeks views on pre-market regulations for medical devices to improve patient access and strengthen patient safety [14/11].
BMA
- Press release: UHB agrees to lift the imposed changes to doctors’ pay for extra work in BMA win [13/11].
Policy, think tanks, charities and representative bodies
The Health Foundation
- New figures continue to show the immense challenge in tackling NHS waiting times [14/11].
- “As winter approaches, today’s statistics continue to show the immense challenge the government faces in tackling NHS waiting times…” said Tim Gardner, Assistant Director of Policy at the Health Foundation on the publication of the NHS monthly performance statistics.
Nuffield Trust
- What did the Autumn Budget do for the NHS’s financial health? [12/11].
- Sally Gainsbury assesses what the recent budget means for the NHS.
- The Nuffield Trust published an analysis showing that the NHS in England was facing £4.8bn worth of unfunded cost pressures in the current financial year.
- With a day-to-day budget that currently looks like it will be below the level of NHS inflation, being able to adequately staff new equipment and buildings – including the ambition to have more capacity in community settings and GP practices – may prove a challenge, and a real brake on the extent to which a more generous capital budget can actually be spent.
The King’s Fund
- How should the 10-year health plan respond to the climate crisis? [15/11].
- The 10-year health plan is shouldering a heavy load of expectations: transforming the NHS into a preventive, digitally-savvy, community-focused health system; ending the agonisingly long waits for care; rebuilding a battered workforce.
- Ultimately, the challenge for the 10-year plan is to create a health system that will be resilient for the future.
- Devolution in the NHS – could it work this time? [14/11].
- Streeting outlined a sweeping plan: triple devolution. Power and resource will be pushed out of Whitehall to integrated care boards, to providers and to patients. Ultimately, the centre will be much smaller, issuing far fewer ‘diktats and demands’.
General Medical Council
- Preparing for the regulation of PAs and AAs: the importance of effective clinical governance [13/11].
- Regulation and the changing workforce: what demographic trends mean for the future of general practice [12/11].
- “General practice is working hard to deliver for the communities it serves. But it is doing so against a backdrop of extreme pressure… In short, general practice is creaking under the weight of an unsustainable demand for care and that workload is taking its toll. Our data show that, in 2023, nearly half of all GPs were struggling. That’s a higher proportion than any other doctor group. They’re also the least likely to be satisfied with their jobs. In fact, since 2019, GPs have consistently reported poorer experiences, across multiple measures including high risk of burnout, than other doctors. When doctors’ wellbeing is compromised, so, too, is their ability to deliver great care. GPs are working hard to insulate patients from the ill effects of a strained system. But it’s painfully clear, to public and profession alike, that general practice is not on a sustainable footing.” said Professor Dame Carrie MacEwen’s during her speech at Pulse Live in Liverpool.
- Regulation of PAs will benefit patients and support general practice, GMC Chair tells Liverpool audience [12/11].
London Trusts
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
- Article: NHS delivery drones take flight offering faster and greener patient care [13/11].
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust