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: Guidance on the use of AI-enabled ambient scribing products in health and care settings [30/3].
- Guidance: Community health services waiting times [30/3].
- Data: NHS England high cost drugs commissioning list [30/3].
- Guidance: Safeguarding children, young people and adults at risk in the NHS: Safeguarding accountability and assurance framework [30/3].
- Standards: Minimum standards for annual leave for resident doctors [1/4].
- Letter: Service specification: General practice seasonal vaccination services – COVID-19 and influenza vaccination enhanced services [2/4].
Department of Health and Social Care
- Guidance: Use of dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans: government position – sets out the government’s current position on the use of DEXA scans in the UK [30/3].
- Guidance: NHS injury costs recovery scheme: tariff and charges from 1 October 2025 [2/4].
- Correspondence: BMA resident doctor industrial action, April 2026 [2/4].
- Press release: NHS patients and British businesses to benefit from historic changes to medicines access following pharmaceutical partnership with USA [2/4].
UK Health Security Agency
- Guidance: Immunisation: migrant health guide [31/3].
- Advice and guidance on the health needs of migrant patients for healthcare practitioners.
- Guidance: Health advice for women returning from areas with a risk of Zika virus [1/4].
- Guidance: COVID-19 vaccination: spring 2026 campaign resources [1/4].
- Guidance: National measles guidelines [2/4].
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
- Guidance: Clinical trials for medicines: apply for authorisation in the UK [31/3].
- Guidance: Get medicines to NHS patients earlier via the MHRA-NICE aligned pathway [1/4].
- Guidance: COVID-19 test validation approved products [1/4].
BMA
- Press release: BMA to ballot senior doctors in England for industrial action [31/3].
- Press release: Resident doctors outline questions Government must answer to avert strike action [1/4].
Policy, think tanks, charities, and representative bodies
Ipsos
- Highest percentage of Britons now think the UK Government is doing a bad job of negotiating with trade unions to prevent strikes, amidst potential BMA strikes next week [2/4].
- Polling from Ipsos in the UK finds that a significant portion of the British public is dissatisfied with the current government’s handling of negotiations with trade unions. With the highest dissatisfaction rating since this government took office, public sentiment reflects mounting concerns over worker power and public service disruptions.
- Government negotiation effectiveness: 55% of Britons now say the UK Government, led by Keir Starmer, are doing a ‘bad job in negotiating with unions to prevent public service disruption’ (up from 43% in July 2025 and 23% in October 2024)
- Comparison with previous government: Less than one in four now say the current Government is ‘doing a better job’ than the previous government at negotiating with trade unions (22% in March 2026 compared to 33% July 2025).
- Perceived worker power: The survey also highlights that half of Britons feel workers have too little power today (51%)
- Public sympathy: While there’s a notable opposition to resident doctors’ strikes, public sympathy largely remains with NHS patients affected by these disruptions, with more than 8 in 10 (83%) expressing sympathy for patients.
- Dispute blame: More respondents (36%) place the blame for the long-standing dispute on the government rather than on resident doctors (21%). A further 3 in 10 (30%) say they are equally at fault.
The King’s Fund
- Crunching the numbers: why we need an analytical capability and workforce plan [2/4].
- This blog argues that delivering the ambitions of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan will depend not just on new policies, but on having the right analytical capability and workforce to make sense of growing complexity in the health and care system. While analytical capacity exists across the NHS, local government, regulators and academia, it is fragmented, unevenly used and at risk from poorly coordinated reforms, automation and organisational change. The blog highlights how many analysts are trapped in routine reporting roles just as AI is set to automate this work, raising urgent questions about reskilling, redeployment and future leadership. It concludes that the NHS and government need a clear, strategic analytical workforce plan—linked to the wider NHS workforce plan—to ensure existing skills are better used, future capabilities are defined, and analytics can genuinely support system transformation rather than be sidelined.
- Neighbourhood health framework: clarity, gaps and what comes next [1/4].
- This blog welcomes the publication of the government’s Neighbourhood Health Framework for bringing greater clarity about what neighbourhood health is meant to deliver, placing people at the centre of joined‑up local services across the NHS, social care and public health. While the authors highlight positives such as a broader focus beyond hospitals, a renewed role for health and wellbeing boards, and recognition of partnership working, they raise significant concerns about gaps and feasibility. These include whether overstretched systems—particularly integrated care boards and primary care—have the capacity, workforce and data to deliver ambitious targets; whether hospital-driven priorities risk dominating neighbourhood models; and whether social care and wider primary care services are sufficiently resourced and included. The blog concludes that without clearer long‑term direction, stronger cross‑government alignment and investment in local capacity, the framework risks becoming a collection of well‑intentioned ideas without the practical foundations needed to deliver meaningful change.
- Healthwatch, ‘unknown unknowns’, and the value of a friend who tells you the truth [31/3].
- This blog argues that Healthwatch’s greatest value to the health and care system has been its ability to surface “unknown unknowns” — issues and experiences that services do not think to ask about — by providing an independent, trusted space for people to share unsolicited feedback. Drawing on research conducted with Healthwatch England ahead of its abolition, the author highlights that independence was central to Healthwatch’s credibility with communities, particularly those with the poorest experiences and least trust in statutory services, and enabled it to challenge the system on overlooked problems such as NHS dentistry, GP access and administrative barriers. The blog warns that bringing patient voice “in house” risks weakening this role, arguing that any replacement must retain independence to act as a critical friend: one willing to tell uncomfortable truths, tackle inequalities and ensure patient voices genuinely influence how services are designed and improved
The Nuffield Trust
- How staff joined the NHS under the 50,000 nurses programme – and why they left [2/4].
- This blog examines how the UK government’s pledge to deliver 50,000 additional nurses was achieved by 2023, drawing on detailed NHS workforce data to understand what drove recruitment and why many nurses later left. It finds that a significant share of new joiners came from the private sector and overseas, while retention was undermined by high levels of sickness absence—particularly related to mental health—and limited career progression for experienced nurses stuck at the top of pay bands. The analysis also shows that the workforce became younger and less experienced, international nurses are increasingly leaving after initially staying longer than UK nurses, and growth in nurse numbers has been uneven across regions and care settings. The authors argue that future workforce plans must focus much more on retention, wellbeing and career progression, rather than headline recruitment targets alone
General Medical Council
- GMC welcomes new guidance to strengthen quality assurance in postgraduate medical exams [31/3].
- Following concerns raised by the GMC about postgraduate exam errors, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges recently published new guidance on ways royal colleges can strengthen quality assurance in their exams.
London Trusts
Barts Health NHS Trust
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust