The latest episode of Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs examines what a new Government means for general practice and neighbourhood care.

Pulse Senior journalist Maya Dhillon is joined by deputy news editor Anna Colivicchi and reporter Harry Hetherington. The team takes stock of the change in Government over the past month and considers what this will mean for general practice.

Drawing from his investigation into local enhanced services, Harry asks how Andy Burnham’s history as health secretary and mayor who oversaw health devolution in Manchester may impact the rollout of neighbourhoods.

GP and editorial adviser Dr Keith Hopcroft returns for our clinical segment, in which he goes through a new review which shows that patients with hypertension may be having more blood tests than they need.

Dr Hopcroft explains which tests were and weren’t deemed necessary by researchers, and why the outcome will benefit both GPs and patients.

And finally, Harry returns to the studio to talk about his interview with newly-elected chair of the BMA’s sessional GP committee Dr Lucy-Jane Davis.

She shares how it took her three years to find a substantive GP post amid the under and unemployment crisis; the importance of not undervaluing locums; and how she hopes to use her term to address the gender pay gap and support neurodivergent GPs.

Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs is hosted on Buzzsprout but you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the full episcode here.

Last month’s podcast included discussed Pulse’s Big Interview with the new chair of the BMA’s GP Committee in England, Dr Clare Bannon.

Pulse has joined Instagram and invites GPs to follow them on the platform to keep up to date with the latest news, opinion and analysis for general practice.

@pulsetodaygp is building an engaged community of GPs which continues to grow.

The account has become another medium for us to share Pulse’s work in a more visual manner. Over the last year, we have posted:

• Discussions on the biggest topics in general practice, including GP unemployment, international medical graduates, the GP contract, funding and more
• Highlights from our own investigations on Local Enhanced Services and NHS Health Checks
• Outtakes from our white paper reports on GP access and the complaints system
• Video footage from panels and interviews with the winners of the GP Awards
• Podcast excerpts
• Career advice

Over the coming year we plan to continue to post more of the same, including our opinion pieces which have performed the best on the platform. We also hope to collaborate with other accounts in the general practice Instagram community to continue to grow our audience.

You can follow us @pulsetodaygp.

Pulse provides an indispensable and comprehensive range of trusted content that meets the needs of all GPs, through its political and financial news, cutting-edge investigations, clinical updates or practical business advice.

In the latest episode of Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs, Editor Sofia Lind is joined by deputy news editor Anna Colivicchi to discuss Anna’s Big Interview with the new chair of the BMA’s GP Committee in England, Dr Clare Bannon.

The pair reflect on Dr Bannon’s plan for her term in power, including future collective action, the importance of the partnership model to the healthcare system, and how preparing for a ‘plan B’ could give GPs other options in the scenario that the NHS fails.

Anna then speaks with senior journalist Maya Dhillon about her trip to Wales for Pulse LIVE Cardiff, where she also interviewed GPC Wales chair Dr Gareth Oelmann.

As the Welsh Government goes through a transition period, Dr Oelmann discusses the need for an increase in funding to general practice; the need for more GPs; and explains why contract negotiations have been delayed.

And for our clinical section, GP and editorial adviser Dr Keith Hopcroft runs through one of our most popular stories from June: the development of a risk calculator that estimates a person’s risk of developing serious muscle disorders from taking statins.

Study lead Dr Ting Cai, research fellow in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford joins him to answer his questions about the future of this tool being used in consultations, as well as how it may affect management and monitoring of patients.

Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs is hosted on Buzzsprout but you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the full episcode here.

GPs are invited to continue their learning by registering for our upcoming Pulse Virtual Events. These events are designed for GPs and primary care professionals seeking practical, CPD-accredited clinical updates and expert-led insights they can apply straight into everyday consultations. The next session, taking place in August, focuses on vaccinations and immunology.

We’ll also be travelling to Newcastle, Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast and Liverpool this year, delivering our Pulse LIVE Events. 

Pulse’s deputy news editor Anna Colivicchi has received an award for her work investigating NHS Health Checks, pregnancy coding errors, and trusts failing to send crucial communication to GPs.  

At the MHP Group 30 to Watch Journalism Awards, Anna was named a winner in the health category, in recognition of her major investigation NHS Heath Checks: at end stage.

The investigation found that cash-strapped local authorities around the country are limiting the number of health checks that can be carried out by GP practices, seriously undermining the prevention programme.

The award also recognised Anna’s exclusive story on pregnant patients receiving ‘inappropriate’ medication due to pharmacy coding errors, as well as her work highlighting issues with hospital trusts failing to send thousands of patient letters to practices, leading to GPs being asked to report patient harm.

For 15 years, MHP Group has celebrated some of the best young talent in the media, and this year more than 250 journalists had entered the awards across ten categories including news and investigations, politics, health, personal finance and production.

Each year, 30 winners under 30 are chosen in recognition of their ‘outstanding investigation, storytelling and impact’. You can find the full list of winners here.

Anna became deputy news editor in April last year, after spending two years as a senior reporter at Pulse, and reporting at a variety of local newspapers for four years prior to that. In her role as deputy news editor, she has continued to break exclusive stories for Pulse that shed light on the biggest issues affecting GPs, as well as taking on more editorial responsibility for the brand.

This is the latest in a string of awards for Pulse. At the end of last year, Pulse editor-in-chief Jaimie Kaffash was named ‘innovator of the year’ at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards, and senior features and audio journalist Maya Dhillon won ‘unsung hero’ of the year at the BSME Talent awards, following Pulse winning B2B writer of the year and best use of data journalism at the previous year’s awards.

Pulse has launched an exclusive investigation into Local Enhanced Services (LESs), revealing how significant variation in local commissioning is creating a postcode lottery for both GP practices and patients across England.

Using Freedom of Information requests to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs), Pulse uncovered wide variation in the availability, funding and delivery of services such as spirometry, with some areas offering dedicated funding while others provide little or no support for the same activity. The investigation also revealed the use of funding caps, clawback arrangements and other contractual mechanisms that can limit practices’ ability to provide services.

However, the investigation went beyond funding arrangements to examine a critical question facing general practice: why do practices continue delivering services that are underfunded or, in some cases, loss-making?

Pulse found that many practices continue to provide unfunded LES work because of patient need, clinical responsibility, local service pressures and concerns about gaps in care. GPs described difficult decisions between financial sustainability and maintaining services that patients rely on, highlighting the growing tension between national ambitions to move more care into the community and the resources available to deliver that care locally.

For healthcare organisations, commissioners and industry partners, the investigation provides valuable insight into the real-world barriers affecting service implementation and patient access. It highlights how local funding decisions can directly influence the uptake, availability and sustainability of services, creating significant variation in patient experience and outcomes.

The LES Lottery investigation forms part of Pulse’s wider programme of data-led journalism examining how national policy translates into frontline practice. Recent investigations have explored issues including NHS Health Check commissioning, the misunderstood issue of GP access and the GP unemployment crisis. Through exclusive reporting, Freedom of Information investigations and expert analysis, Pulse continues to uncover the operational realities shaping primary care delivery across England.

Alongside its award-winning journalism, Pulse supports GPs and healthcare stakeholders with practical clinical content, commissioning and business analysis, educational resources and insight into the changing primary care landscape.

Pulse provides an indispensable and comprehensive range of trusted content that meets the needs of all GPs through political and financial news, exclusive investigations, clinical updates, practical business advice and expert analysis. Our journalism not only informs frontline clinicians but helps healthcare organisations, commissioners and industry partners better understand the challenges, opportunities and unmet needs across primary care.

The new episode of Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs discusses the BMA’s decision to ballot GPs in England on a ‘plan B’ or an alternative model of general practice.

Pulse senior journalist Maya Dhillon is joined by deputy news editor Anna Colivicchi and editor-in-chief Jaimie Kaffash to look at where this has come from, what it shows about the profession’s mood and how likely an exit from the NHS actually is.

The group reflect on what ‘doing a dentist’ could actually look like, as well as talking to Dr Maitiú O’Faoláin – vice chair of the GP committee of the Irish Medical Organisation – about what GPs here could learn about the Republic of Ireland’s mixed model of private and state-funded general practice.

Editorial adviser Dr Keith Hopcroft is joined by Professor Celia Gregson, professor of clinical epidemiology and chair of the National Osteoporosis Guideline Group, to discuss new research on the use of vitamin D and calcium supplements for fracture prevention.

Reporter Harry Hetherington stops by to talk about his new investigation into local enhanced services across England. He explains the threefold ‘LES Lottery’ he uncovered through data, explaining the variation for services across ICBs and why GPs continue to carry out underfunded LESs.

And we round off the episode with a quickfire clinical round-up with the biggest stories this month: the final recommendations for prostate cancer screening in the general population; a name change for polycystic ovary syndrome; and uptake in combined asthma inhalers since an update in NICE guidance.

Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs is hosted on Buzzsprout but you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the full episcode here.

Pulse provides an indispensable and comprehensive range of trusted content that meets the needs of all GPs, through its political and financial news, cutting-edge investigations, clinical updates or practical business advice. Last month, the podcast reported exclusively from Pulse LIVE London. Pulse’s editorial adviser Dr Keith Hopcroft took us through his favourite clinical sessions, and Pulse editor Sofia Lind gave us the highlights from her Big Interview with Baroness Clare Gerada.

Pulse is releasing a report into working as a UK-trained GP in New Zealand, focusing on areas such as visa requirements, pay, the way the health system works and the lifestyle across the two islands.

The 24-page guide, which will be serialised into five parts on Pulse, follows a Pulse survey last year of more than 1,000 GPs found that around one in three had considered relocating to New Zealand, which was only behind Canada and Australia in terms of popularity.  

It looks at the positives and negatives of living and working in New Zealand, comparing pay rates and cost-of-living, taxation and transferring NHS pensions. It also looks at the lifestyle in various parts of the country, from the more energetic, cosmopolitan lifestyle of the cities in the north to the stunning scenery and outdoors lifestyle of the South Island.

This guide follows a January 2025 white paper by Pulse’s publishers Cogora, which showed the extend of the number of GPs who are underemployed in the UK, leading many to look overseas for work. Equally, it comes at a time when New Zealand are in need of GPs themselves.

The paper is supported by Good Together, a New Zealand-based medical recruitment and workforce support organisation, working across primary care and hospital services.

Director Moana Bywater said: We ‘We are pleased to contribute to this guide, as we believe it is important that doctors considering a move to New Zealand have a clear and balanced understanding of what working and living here involves. While New Zealand offers a professionally and personally appealing lifestyle for many, it may not be the right fit for everyone. Our focus is on ensuring doctors are well informed and well supported, so they can make decisions that are right for them.’

You can read the full Working as a GP in New Zealand report here.

If you are interested in finding out more about Pulse Careers sponsorship opportunities, please get in touch with us today.

The latest episode of Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs unpicks the new guidance from NICE, recommending use of weight loss drug semaglutide (Wegovy) to prevent heart attack and stroke.

Pulse editorial adviser Dr Keith Hopcroft is joined by Professor Ahmet Fuat, honorary professor of primary care cardiology at Durham University and GP with extended role in cardiorenal medicine.

The pair discuss the evidence base behind the recommendation, what the roll out might look like, who is eligible, who will be responsible for managing care, and how it fits in with existing NICE guidance on treating patients with type 2 diabetes with SGLT-2 inhibitors.

Professor Fuat also considers whether semaglutide has the potential to go to be used as a prevention tool in the future, in the same way as statins and aspirin.

We round up our episode with editor Sofia Lind discussing where general practice stands following a referendum on the 26/27 GP contract, in which 98.9% rejected the Government’s imposed changes.

She tells senior journalist Maya Dhillon about ‘the difficult position’ she believes the GPC has put itself in, by threatening collective action by 30 April (unless the Government pauses its implementation of ‘mandatory’ A&G) as the committee will not want to miss out on negotiations about a new GMS contract with the health secretary.

Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs is hosted on Buzzsprout but you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the full episcode here.

Pulse provides an indispensable and comprehensive range of trusted content that meets the needs of all GPs, through its political and financial news, cutting-edge investigations, clinical updates or practical business advice. Last month, the podcast explored the changes introduced by the 2026/27 GP contract.

In the latest episode of Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs, senior Pulse journalist Maya Dhillon is joined by Anna Colivicchi, deputy news editor, and Dr Keith Hopcroft, GP and editorial adviser, to analyse and explain the changes introduced by the 2026/27 GP contract.

The trio go through all the major headlines – including new same-day requirements around ‘clinically urgent patients’, a shift in funding for a new practice-level recruitment scheme, and mandated collaboration between practices and ICBs.

Anna and Keith discuss the absorption of advice and guidance (A&G) from an enhanced service into the core contract, contemplating how this ‘blurs’ the line between GP and specialist remit; and how this will work in practice.

The discussion comes as NHS England’s national director for primary care Dr Amanda Doyle wrote exclusively for Pulse, explaining their rationale for the move.

Keith also provides a handy overview of the changes to QOF, including the addition of two new obesity indicators and the provision of ‘improvement incentives’ for childhood vaccination rates.

Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs is hosted on Buzzsprout but you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the full episcode here.

Pulse provides an indispensable and comprehensive range of trusted content that meets the needs of all GPs, through its political and financial news, cutting-edge investigations, clinical updates or practical business advice. Last month, the podcast explored the the GP contract negotiations and whether GPs should lower elderly antibiotic prescribing threshold.

Pulse has launched its latest investigation into the prevention programme NHS Health Check.

The Pulse investigation uncovered that GP practices could carry out more checks for heart disease and diabetes as part of the programme, but are being limited by caps imposed by local authorities.

The prevention programme is meant to be open to all adults aged 40 to 74 years old who do not have any pre-existing health conditions – such as stroke, diabetes, kidney disease and certain heart conditions – and patients have been encouraged in national messaging to ‘book with their GP’.  

New FOI data gathered by Pulse as part of the investigation has uncovered that more than 70 local authorities out of 151 in charge of commissioning the programme declared they are limiting the number of health checks that GP practices can carry out and be reimbursed for per year – and GPs warned this is effectively limiting the number of patients that can access the checks.  

The investigation comprises of several pieces exposing how GPs are being told to limit the checks, and whether the checks are clinically useful. It also includes an opinion piece from the Health Foundation which highlighted how Pulse’s journalism has exposes ‘fundamental weaknesses in how England designs, funds and delivers prevention’.

The main findings of the investigation were also covered by The Independent. You can read the full investigation here.

Pulse provides an indispensable and comprehensive range of trusted content that meets the needs of all GPs, through its political and financial news, cutting-edge investigations, clinical updates or practical business advice. 

Pulse has launched its annual writing competition to find a new blogger to entertain our readers of GPs.

The Pulse Writing Competition looks to find new GP writers to entertain (or exasperate) readers.

The team are asking our community of GPs to write a blog on one of the following themes:

• ‘The lies I tell my patients’
• ‘The case that still gives me nightmares’
• ‘Why I’m still in the job’

Entries will be judged by our team, with the best blogs being published on Pulse; as well as the opportunity to become one of our regular writers – joining the likes of Copperfield, Dr Margaret Ikpoh, Dr Katie Musgrave, Dr David Turner, Dr Burnt Out and Dr Paul O’Reilly.

GPs of all career stages are welcome to enter the Pulse Writing Competition.

Pulse provides an indispensable and comprehensive range of trusted content that meets the needs of all GPs, through its political and financial news, cutting-edge investigations, clinical updates or practical business advice.