Editorials

The Department of Health, under both the current and previous government, has had an Orwellian tendency to dream up names for its policies that bear little relation to their true purpose.

General practice has always been at its most vulnerable when it has lacked unity.

The imposition of extended hours was one of the bloodiest episodes in the recent history of general practice.

GPs are generally cautious about their use of medicines, but there is no getting round prescribing off-label from time to time.

It is hard to object to an idea as wholesome as extended training. But this Government places a price tag on every policy, and in this case the price looks worryingly high.

Revalidation has been on the cards so long the GMC has published a ‘historical timeline’ of its introduction – even before it has gone live.

Say No to 30%. It’s a simple slogan and this week we adopt it for the next stage in our campaigning on GP pensions.

There is a huge gap between the grand rhetoric of policy makers, who dream of GP practices taking on swathes of work from hospitals and evolving into high-tech community providers, and the reality at surgery buildings across the country

It has never sat well with doctors that one of medicine’s most potent and widely used weapons against stroke is a blood-thinning agent first developed to poison rats.

It doesn’t pay to stand on ceremony when negotiating with the Department of Health.

It is time for a plan that abandons wholesale injection of competition into the NHS and substantially modifies proposals for GP commissioning

Short-term deals prevent providers making the long-term investments a good practice requires

The NHS must address the alarming variation in the quality of its hospitals, and GPs should be prepared to take a leading role.

The Government may be deaf to those it views as its enemies, but perhaps there is still hope it will listen to its few remaining friends.

It looks like 111 is here to stay - but GPs must be handed control of how the number is introduced

Everything seems set up for one almighty collision

We need to treat the cause of our out-of-hours problems - not just the symptoms

It would be tragically easy for the profession to turn on itself as practices cut jobs, but this must be a time for solidarity.

Five years to save general practice. It’s not quite the 24 hours Tony Blair warned voters they had to save the NHS, but it’s still one of the more dramatic pronouncements made by a senior GP leader in recent years.

Are we ‘at the cusp’ of seeing a slump in GP engagement with the NHS reforms?