We return this week with another instalment from our Practice Index sponsored Practice Manager panel members Robyn Clark and Nicola Davies, who feature alongside fellow podcast favourite Dr Hussain Gandhi, Clinical Director for Nottingham City East PCN and eGPlearning guru. Ben was keen to gauge the group's reaction to the recent changes in contractual requirements to ensure same-day contact with patients and how this can possibly be met in an environment where many practices are struggling with recruitment of receptionists, management of training in care navigation, staff wellbeing and the ongoing mismatch in patient expectations and media perception.

Introduction (0.34)

Gandhi's initial thoughts (0.50)

Embedding the total triage model (1.11)

The importance of patient education (1.55)

Where do we stand re. patient engagement? (2.27)

A lack of support centrally - and from the media at large (3.19)

Knock-on effect (3.39)

Direction from ICBs and local systems (4.48)

Why total triage won't work in every practice (6.08)

Having permission to develop a system which works for individual patient populations (6.49)

Is this contractual change more impactful than the capacity and access plans we have to submit? How is Gandhi managing this in his area, within his capacity as Clinical Director? (7.19)

Empowerment of reception teams and enablement of the care navigation role (9.11)

Concern re. public perception of reception staff (10.50)

What's being offered in terms of upskilling reception teams? (11.52)

Challenges of recruitment (13.05)

Moving the care navigation initiative forward (13.43)

Support from secondary care colleagues (15.07)

Referrals back to primary care (16.09)

Dissecting the BMA response (17.05)

Protection of primary care staff wellbeing and working within safe limits (18.50)

A mismatch in expectations (20.00)

Positive advice for practices from Robyn (20.49)

Strength in numbers (22.37)

Continuous engagement with ICBs (23.21)

Working as a network (24.44)

For more information about NHS England's Looking after you too scheme, click here

Check out eGPlearning for tons of resources to help practices and networks to navigate the new contractual obligations

To visit the Practice Index website, click here or contact James Dillon here.

For all enquiries about the Ockham podcast, please contact Ben Gowland here.