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.
- Guidance: Primary medical care policy and guidance manual: contract variations annexes [20/01].
- Letter: Service specification: Community pharmacy seasonal vaccination services – COVID-19 and influenza vaccination advanced services [20/01].
- Guidance: The reasonable adjustment digital flag action checklist – a national record which indicates that reasonable adjustments are required for an individual and optionally includes details of their significant impairments, key adjustments that should be considered, and underlying conditions [21/01].
Department of Health and Social Care
- Press release: Government to end cancer postcode lottery for patients [22/01].
- People living in rural and coastal areas will find it easier to see a cancer specialist as the government works to end the postcode lottery for care.
UK Health Security Agency
- Guidance: Pneumococcal vaccination for older adults and for individuals in a clinical risk group: Information for healthcare practitioners [19/01].
- Guidance: Universal varicella vaccination programme in England: surveillance [21/01].
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
- Press release: MHRA scientists contribute to international study on novel oral polio vaccine stability [19/01].
- Guidance: Health Institution Exemption for general medical devices [20/01].
- Guidance: Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP) – is focused on getting the most transformative new medicines to patients in the UK health system more quickly [21/01].
- Guidance: Find product information about medicines [22/01].
- News: Isotretinoin prescribing requirements updated with revised risk-minimisation measures [22/01].
Policy, think tanks, charities, and representative bodies
The Health Foundation
- New housing reforms could improve health, but how we enforce them will be just as crucial [19/1].
- This blog argues that recent housing reforms could significantly improve people’s health by raising standards in the private rented sector, but their success depends entirely on effective enforcement. Local authorities already face major challenges — limited funding, staff shortages and inconsistent inspection practices — which risk leaving many renters in unsafe, cold or damp homes that harm their physical and mental health. The author stresses that without proper resourcing, clear guidance and accountability, the reforms may look ambitious on paper but fail to deliver meaningful change in practice.
Smart Thinking
Think tank: Fabian Society
- Testing Times [22/1].
- This report examines how Covid‑19 exposed the strengths and weaknesses of different European countries’ systems of devolution. It argues that the UK’s highly centralised model — especially in England — struggled to balance national public‑health measures with the need for flexible, locally informed responses. By comparing how neighbouring countries coordinated national strategy with local delivery, the publication highlights lessons for the UK as it revisits questions of devolution, regional inequality and the distribution of political authority.
The King’s Fund
- The burden of cardiovascular disease in Europe: are there lessons for the UK? [22/1].
- This blog highlights new Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) findings showing that cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of illness and death in Europe, affecting around 62 million people and responsible for one in three deaths in 2022. Despite major declines in mortality since the 1970s, the burden is still huge, and the analysis offers clear lessons for the UK: prevention efforts are not happening at the scale needed, wide inequalities persist, and many of the risk factors — such as smoking, obesity and high blood pressure — are preventable. The blog argues that England faces similar challenges and that stronger, more coordinated action on CVD prevention and management could significantly improve population health and reduce inequalities.
- NHS regions should be part of the NHS, not the department [21/1].
- This blog argues that moving NHS England’s seven regional teams into the Department of Health and Social Care is a strategic mistake. While the regions have survived the abolition of NHS England, the author contends they would be more effective, more independent, and more useful to ministers if they remained part of the NHS rather than being absorbed into the department. The piece highlights that regional structures have long been a resilient and essential layer of the health system and warns that placing them inside the department risks reducing their ability to provide honest challenge, operational insight and meaningful oversight.
General Medical Council
Nuffield Trust
- Coal or chocolate coins: What do the changes to local government funding mean for social care? [18/1].
- This blog explains that recent changes to local government funding offer little real relief for social care, despite being presented as reforms. While councils will see some increases through the Local Government Finance Settlement, most of the uplift depends on councils raising council tax — a mechanism that hits poorer areas hardest and widens existing inequalities. The blog argues that funding remains far below what is needed to stabilise the sector, leaving social care services still facing rising demand, workforce pressures and financial strain. Overall, the reforms feel more like “chocolate coins” than meaningful investment, offering symbolic support rather than the substantial, sustainable funding social care requires.
London Trusts
Barts Health NHS Trust