Instead, why don’t we stop being gatekeepers for a day?

Primary care has ended up as a political football.

It has been my experience that it is hospital doctors, rather than GPs, who tend to over-request lab tests.

In developing our future funding model, we will ensure that the model does not in any way inhibit referrals.

The GMC study on prescribing errors reveals just how complex prescribing decisions are. As a former GP, I know all too well that there are times when we need to balance one risk against another – this is often not evident when reviewing the prescription in isolation.

There has been a lot of speculation and comment about the QALY calculations presented as part of the King’s Fund International Telehealth and Telecare Congress earlier this month, all of which is really missing the point.

CCGs are getting a bad press without anyone giving them a chance. Perhaps this is what’s wrong with the NHS system.

I think there is some confusion regarding ‘off-label’ prescribing and ‘off-licence’ dispensing. Doctors can prescribe whatever they feel is necessary for the patient.

The suggestion that LES payments should be cut if attendance at GP extended hours surgeries fails to reach a certain threshold is as useless as it is stupid.

As a trainers group, we have spent much time recently discussing the suitability of trainees entering vocational training and have had concerns over the standard of undergraduate teaching from certain universities.

Unlike some mutuals or GP co-operatives who refused to participate in this round of benchmarking, Harmoni welcomes the publication of comparative data.

Thank you for requesting feedback on the plans for practices to be regulated by the Care Quality Commission.

I was disappointed to read your recent article portraying a misleading account of Gloucestershire’s telehealth scheme.

As a long-standing member of RCGP Council, I am appalled at the new recommendations requiring returners to undergo assessment after short-term absences.

Taking industrial action on the pensions debate will be too woolly, and will irritate patients.

NICE advises antipsychotics should only be prescribed after other approaches have failed, started at the lowest dose and monitored regularly. In reality, antipsychotics are often used as first-line treatments.

More often than not, a locum is a doctor who was never given the opportunity for partnership.

The Self-Care Forum fully endorses Sir John Oldham’s belief that self-care is more than a ‘nice’ thing to do

The BMA is in a tight spot. The sharks are circling and have already taken a bite out of our pension.

I share the editor’s concerns at the relative disinvestment we have seen in funding available for developing primary care premises in recent years.

A reader imagines the continued correspondence between Dr Clare Gerada and David Cameron...

The Telegraph showed how the taxpayer is being ripped off recently in its article ‘NHS pays £20,000 a week for a doctor’.

Suggestions in your recent article on premises funding paint a thoroughly misleading and inaccurate picture of the role of the LIFT Council – and more generally, how the LIFT model can support the premises needs of GPs.

The health bill has clearly polarised opinion.

Your editorial suggests the BMA misunderstood the nature of the Heads of Agreement document on NHS pensions, and that it has tied our hands.  However, it was made very clear throughout that we...

Forget the negativity - our CCG has transformed mental health services, says Dr John Orchard.

Reports in Pulse that PCTs and emerging clinical commissioning groups are ‘rationing care' for obese patients and smokers gained widespread coverage in the mainstream media. A policy introduced in Hertfordshire earlier this year was cited as an example, and some commentators have cried ‘discrimination' and told us our approach has no place in today's NHS.

Working in a malaria clinic in Uganda brought it home to me just how radically bed nets could change child health there, writes Dr Neil Fletcher.

In our third and final installment of The Patient Paradox, Dr Margaret McCartney looks at the phenomenon of the 'expert patient'.