Pulse: The workforce plan failures

This month, Pulse investigates what has gone wrong with the Government’s GP recruitment plans.

Pulse reveals that the vacancy rates in general practice is worse than ever, while attempts to recruit GPs from abroad have failed badly. We also reveal that primary care networks aren’t receiving the full funding available to them to hire other healthcare staff, which has hampered efforts to reduce GP workload.

Elsewhere, we analyse the case of Dr Manjula Arora, who was suspended for a month by the GMC’s tribunal service for telling her out-of-hours employer she had been ‘promised’ a laptop. Her suspension caused fury across the profession, and we asked how much this case has harmed the GMC’s attempts to improve its image among doctors.

Copperfield rails against even more overmedicalisation, while Nabi takes aim at single-issue health campaigns.

In our clinical section, we look at recognising cancer in children, and our sports injuries series provides advice on treating knee problems in the GP surgery, while the clinical clangers piece focuses on ear infections.

Alongside this, we have a CPD piece on treating transgender patients, and take a look at a week in the life of a GP supporting Soho’s Chinese community.