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.
- Policy: Clinical commissioning policy: intravenous (6 years and above) and subcutaneous (adolescents and adults) C1 esterase inhibitor injections for routine prophylaxis of hereditary angioedema type I and II or acquired angioedema [27/4].
- Guidance: NHS providers of highly specialised services and the UK-wide commissioning arrangements [27/4].
- Policy: Clinical commissioning policy: Neo-adjuvant followed by adjuvant pembrolizumab for stage III macroscopic resectable melanoma (12 years and older) [28/4].
- Guidance: Diabetic eye screening: slit lamp biomicroscopy examiner framework [29/4].
- Guidance: Service model for commissioners – Supporting people with a learning disability and/or autism who display behaviour that challenges, including those with a mental health condition [29/4].
- Press release: Sickle cell and thalassaemia high/low prevalence laboratory return [30/4].
- Letter: Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service from May 2026 – explanatory note [1/5].
Department of Health and Social Care
- Press release: Tobacco and Vapes Bill becomes law [29/4].
- Guidance: Primary Medical Services (Directed Enhanced Services) Directions [30/4].
- Directions for the NHS from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care governing the provision of Directed Enhanced Services (DESs) in general practice.
- Press release: Key target hit with 8,500 extra mental health workers in the NHS [30/4].
- Speech: Health Secretary gives address on NHS performance [30/4].
- Press release: Government funds ambulances after arson attack [30/4].
UK Health Security Agency
- Guidance: Viral hepatitis: a guide to local and national data [27/4].
- Guidance: Keeping warm and well: staying safe in cold weather [28/4].
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
- Guidance: Clinical trials for medicines: expert advice [28/4].
- Guidance: Clinical trials for medicines: apply for approval in the UK [28/4].
- Press release: MHRA delivers its targets to increase access to medicines and reinforce UK position as a global destination for life sciences [28/4].
- Press release: Precautionary recall of antidepressant medication due to manufacturing error [28/4].
- Press release: MHRA hires top global tech talent to transform systems behind regulation of medicines and medical devices [29/4]. Guidance: The Innovative Devices Access Pathway (IDAP) [30/4].
- Press release: Recommended use of some nasal decongestant sprays limited to five days by UK regulator [30/4].
BMA
- Press release: BMA welcomes landmark Tobacco and Vapes Act as major step for public health [29/4].
Policy, think tanks, charities, and representative bodies
The King’s Fund
- Still holding it together: what NHS administration really looks like from general practice [30/4].
- This blog highlights how NHS administration in general practice is not a distant, bureaucratic function but an essential, patient‑facing part of care that often determines whether people can access services at all. Drawing on frontline experience, it shows how admin teams spend large amounts of time helping patients navigate complex digital systems, interpret communications and stay connected to care—work that is especially vital for those with the greatest needs and least stability. General practice frequently adapts inflexible systems to support vulnerable patients, absorbing frustration when processes fail and carrying emotional labour that is rarely acknowledged. Despite managing risk, holding deep system knowledge and acting as advocates for patients, administrative staff face low pay, burnout and poor recognition. The blog argues that improving NHS administration must start with recognising admin as part of care, investing in the workforce, and designing systems around real patient journeys, rather than relying on invisible effort to hold a fragmented system together.
- The ‘stuck paradox’: what we learned from leaders about AI and digital transformation [29/4].
- This blog describes a “stuck paradox” facing health and care leaders as they try to respond to the rapid growth of AI and digital transformation: a strong sense of urgency to act, combined with real constraints on capacity, capability and confidence. Based on conversations with nearly 60 leaders, it finds that while AI offers clear opportunities—such as reducing administrative burden and improving access to information—leaders are grappling with unclear productivity goals, patient trust, workforce impacts, widening inequalities and significant governance challenges. Adoption is uneven across organisations and sectors, risks polarising the workforce and displacing roles, and is often driven bottom‑up by frontline staff rather than supported by clear national leadership. The blog argues that leaders need permission to hold complexity, stronger peer networks, clearer national direction and practical frameworks that balance risk and opportunity, rather than rigid strategies, to move forward safely and meaningfully with AI in a stretched system.
The Health Foundation
- A snapshot of public opinion on the NHS in the devolved nations [28/4].
- This blog highlights widespread pessimism about NHS performance across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, based on Ipsos polling ahead of upcoming devolved elections. Fewer than one in ten people in each nation believe NHS care has improved in the past year, and around half expect standards to worsen, although people tend to rate their own local services more positively than the NHS overall. Public priorities differ by nation: improving access to GP appointments in Scotland, faster ambulance response times in Wales, and reducing long hospital waiting lists in Northern Ireland, where dissatisfaction is most pronounced. While support for the founding principles of the NHS remains strong across all three nations, the blog notes a gap between public priorities and some political manifestos, arguing that closing the divide between negative system‑wide perceptions and more positive personal experiences will require both tangible improvements and clearer evidence of recovery
Nuffield Trust
- Assisted dying and end of life care: how can learning from overseas inform what happens next? [29/4].
- This blog argues that as assisted dying legislation in England, Wales and Scotland has stalled but is likely to return, policymakers should learn from how assisted dying operates in other countries to inform what happens next. Drawing on evidence from 15 jurisdictions, it highlights that assisted dying is usually embedded within healthcare systems and commonly accessed alongside palliative and end‑of‑life care, rather than replacing it. The authors stress that introducing assisted dying without addressing underfunded and unequal palliative care risks worsening existing inequities, particularly given the UK’s reliance on charitable hospice funding. International experience also shows that while safeguards are important, access barriers—such as geography, workforce capacity, costs and complex processes—often pose greater challenges than misuse. The blog concludes that future debates should focus not only on assisted dying itself, but on improving the quality, funding and accessibility of end‑of‑life care, alongside transparent oversight and better data, to ensure people can die with dignity and genuine choice.
London Trusts
Barts Health NHS Trust
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust