For anyone starting out in Primary Care Informatics, PHCSG are offering a travel bursary to attend MIE in Genoa in May 2026.  This bursary is in honour Julian Costello, a GP I was lucky enough to work with for many years.  More information can be found here: https://www.bcs.org/membership-and-registrations/member-communities/primary-health-care-specialist-group/prizes-and-awards/julian-costello-travel-bursaries/  

From 1st April 2026, to coincide with COVID Vaccines for possible co-administration, the eligibility for RSV will include patients 80 years & over and all residents in care homes for older adults (previously only offered to patients who had not yet reached 80 years of age). The expanded eligibility with have no upper age limit. […]

Beware of incorrectly coding a patient’s penicillin allergy as a penicillamine allergy. This error risks a patient with a known penicillin allergy being administered a penicillin-based antibiotic and having a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction. ‘Penicillin’ describes a group of broad-spectrum penicillin-based antibiotics. Penicillamine is a drug used to treat Wilson’s disease and severe active rheumatoid […]

Rybelsus should always be taken once daily (1 tablet per day). Patients should be switched directly to the new equivalent strength:   If dose escalation due, patients can be switched to the higher new strength. Patients should be informed about the change in formulation and strength when prescribing or dispensing and new patients should start […]

We are receiving lots of queries from practices struggling with CHOL003 – Q: We are having issues with CHOL003 – Consider statin or other lipid-lowering therapy – this is still outstanding although we have used Statin declined (XaIIl) (SNOMED: 134396000) A: statin is just the recommended first line therapy. If the patient has declined just […]

From 16 January 2026, new functionality is available in PCSE Online to support GP accountants who work on behalf of GP Pension Scheme Members. This will allow accountants to view a member’s Employee Contribution Statement and to complete annual Type 1 or Type 2 certificates where needed (following authorisation from the practice). For more information […]

Public Health have created a downloadable immunisation calculator for GP surgeries and other relevant health professionals. Use it to calculate when a baby or child, is due which vaccines. Once you have access; you can enter their date of birth in the calculator worksheet and it will show what they require from 01/01/2026.  It is […]

And more good news … From 1st January 2026, the fee for completing a DVLA form has increased to £50 (from £40) and from 1st April 2026, will increase to £62.50. The fee increase is so the service is more in line with the work required to complete the form. The BMA are encouraging forms […]

Coils  – FP34D claims Our back-office coding team code lots of coils done outside of the practice.  To ensure you are correctly claiming for all coils in-house, we recommend to practices you exclude DocMAN user in your claim searches or output user so you can identify which ones have been performed in-house. LD removal code […]

This year, the accuracy of your registers (prevalence) determine your income for 82% of your QOF income – 18% is based on practice population.  It is essential you validate your registers; if prevalence is lower than it should be, the value of the points you achieve will be lower than the burden of disease on […]

We’ve heard on the grapevine NHS England is lifting the financial cap for Advice & Guidance (A&G) activity, effective this year. This means practices will be fully funded for all A&G activity undertaken throughout 2025/26. The existing local payment process will likely remain unchanged, and a financial reconciliation process will take place at the end […]

A robust recall system is a must – it ensures you meet your contractual obligation by extending invites to appropriate patients to manage long-term conditions and it also helps achieve targets, such as QOF, driving practice income. Recall systems can be very admin-hungry – a streamlined, robust recall system will improve efficiency and quality of […]

Due to the number of issues we identify around safeguarding, we have added a number of safeguarding resources to the Insight Portal this month- Child protection register Vulnerable adult register Patients aged 18+ with active child protection codes & patients turning 18 next month with child protection code to be potentially coded as vulnerable adult […]

Do you want to find out more about apprenticeships as an employer? Whether this is something you are thinking about doing imminently or it is just on your to-do list to find out more information for future workforce/succession planning, to find out more contact us at info@insightsol.co.uk The government have launched an ambitious new Skills Policy […]

NHS App Survey NHS Digital would like to understand practice opinions on patients being able to give feedback on the messages they receive through the NHS App. https://feedback.digital.nhs.uk/jfe/form/SV_daIW7zC5E1NumzQ Annual Declaration The 2025 Annual Practice Self-Declaration (eDec) is open for practice submissions through the Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS). The deadline for submission is Friday 21 […]

The current formula for distributing primary care funding, known as the Carr-Hill formula is based on old data, some of which is 25 years old. This is the largest income stream for most practices. The review is expected to; Identify a new allocation formula Assess the impact and feasibility of implementing it while ensuring it […]

From 1 September 2025, patients aged 18+ who are severely immunosuppressed will qualify for the Shingles vaccination programme (previously 50 years +). Patients will be offered 2 doses of the non-live shingles vaccine, Shingrix, with the second dose given 8 weeks to 6 months after the first dose.  Severely immunosuppressed patients who have already received […]