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.
- Report: Lord Carter’s review into unwarranted variation in NHS ambulance trusts [24/11].
- Regulatory: NHS provider directory and registers of licensed healthcare providers [25/11].
Department of Health and Social Care
- Press release: Millions to benefit from new health and wellbeing quiz [24/11].
- Press release: Chancellor to double down on drive to cut NHS waiting times and rollout of new Neighbourhood Health Centres [24/11].
- Press release: Visionary leader appointed for Health Data Research Service [25/11].
- Patients to benefit from faster life-saving treatments as new leader appointed for health data service.
- Speech: Working together to raise the healthiest generation ever [25/11].
- Speech: Minister Stephen Kinnock’s speech at the Hospice UK conference [26/11].
- Guidance: Adult social care survey, England: 2025 to 2026 [26/11].
UK Health Security Agency
- Guidance: Combined COVID-19 and flu tests: use in ARI outbreaks in adult social care homes in South East England [27/11].
- Guidance: Polio: global eradication, NAC and environmental surveillance [28/11].
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
- Guidance: Clinical investigations for medical devices [24/11].
- News: MHRA reaffirms safety of childhood vaccination [24/11].
- Press release: MHRA and NICE receive £2 million from Wellcome to improve safety and effectiveness of digital mental health technologies [27/11].
- Press release: New MHRA-supported research reveals patterns of vaccine-derived poliovirus spread and implications for global eradication efforts [27/11].
BMA
- Press release: Budget risks storing up future trouble for the NHS, says BMA [26/11].
- Press release: BMA leaders respond to Wes Streeting’s letter to general practitioners and wider profession [27/11].
Policy, think tanks, charities, and representative bodies
The Health Foundation
- Budget 2025: three things stand out for health [1/12].
- This blog highlights three key health-related takeaways from the Autumn Budget 2025.
- First, scrapping the two-child benefit cap is a major step toward reducing child poverty, which strongly influences health outcomes.
- Second, while NHS spending is rising, other vital services like housing, education, and social care face funding pressures, and the Budget missed an opportunity to boost prevention efforts such as restoring the public health grant.
- Third, the government signalled willingness to use fiscal levers—strengthening the soft drinks levy and introducing gambling duties—but broader measures on unhealthy food and alcohol are needed. Overall, the Budget lacks a clear, ambitious health strategy.
- Funding fairness in primary care: what we learned from a local innovation [27/11].
- This blog explains how outdated GP funding formulas have contributed to inequalities in primary care and highlights lessons from Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland’s health equity payment scheme. This local initiative allocates extra funding to practices serving high-need populations, using data on medical conditions, deprivation, and communication needs. Evaluated over two years, the scheme improved quality of care by 3.2 percentage points, though staffing and patient experience changes were less evident. Practices valued the flexibility to spend funds on staff roles and service improvements. The findings suggest that targeted, data-driven funding models can help address health inequalities and inform national GP funding reform.
- A Budget to support healthier working lives? [24/11].
- This blog urges the UK Budget to invest in health to sustain a productive workforce, focusing on prevention, workplace support, and tackling child poverty, as rising ill health could cost billions and harm economic growth.
The King’s Fund
- Is there a quick route to reducing health care costs or visits to A&E? [28/11].
- The blog explores whether reducing A\&E visits can cut health care costs, drawing on a US study where giving low-income individuals up to $400 monthly led to 27% fewer emergency visits, including major drops in mental health and substance-related cases. While the NHS won’t hand out cash, the findings highlight the link between financial security and health. The piece argues that welfare advice services—already shown to boost incomes—could be a cost-effective way for the NHS to improve health and reduce demand on emergency care, though funding for such schemes remains limited.
Smart Thinking
Think tank: Re:State
- Hospital of the future: the last word [24/11].
- This article concludes Re:State’s year-long “Hospital of the Future” programme, which reimagines hospitals to address their structural crisis. It argues that prevention alone won’t solve systemic issues and calls for a radical redesign of hospitals as if starting from scratch. Key themes include shifting to virtual hospitals, improving patient flow, and integrating care beyond physical buildings. The paper distills nearly 50 recommendations, some already adopted by the government, and emphasises that hospitals must evolve into flexible, digitally enabled services to meet modern health demands.
Care Quality Commission
- Our improvement plans for 2026 [27/11].
- CQC’s update focuses on clearing registration backlogs, simplifying processes, and completing 9,000 assessments by September 2026. Longer-term plans include redesigning regulatory frameworks, improving digital systems, and engaging providers and the public to shape changes by late 2026.
Institute of Health Equity
- Budget 2025: Government scraps two child benefit cap in major U turn [27/11].
- This article explains that the UK government will scrap the two-child benefit cap in April 2026, reversing a long-standing policy. This change means families can claim Universal Credit for more than two children, a move expected to lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates the cost at £2.3 billion in 2026–27, rising to £3 billion by 2029–30.
London Trusts
Barts Health NHS Trust
- Article: Patients in east London will have easier access to cholesterol-lowering treatment through a pilot delivering Inclisiran injections at community pharmacies [27/11].
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust