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How to supervise physician associates: tips for GP locums

Dr Heidi Mounsey, medicolegal consultant at Medical Protection, provides some helpful advice for GP locums to consider as they supervise or manage physician associates

The Sessional GP Magazine June 2024

The June issue of the newly-redesigned Sessional GP Magazine has advice from MPS on the new death certificates and from specialist independent financial advisors on getting insurance when you work as a GP locum. NASGP member Dr Louise Hudman has summarised the latest Nice advice on ovarian cancer, and we've also covered the latest news that affects sessional GPs.

As a GP locum, do I need long-term sickness insurance cover?

Are all income protection policies the same? The blunt answer is a most definite “no”.

Q&A: Dr Kath Speller, portfolio GP and community sub-dean

A portfolio GP Locum and Community Sub-Dean for Peninsula Medical School in Somerset, Dr Speller explains how she started locuming, how she built up her portfolio and her tips for starting out as a locums or portfolio GP.

Video: Starting out with GP locum accounts

Adrian Cousens, director of RSM UK, presented a half-hour event with a Q&A for NASGP on 5 October.

GP locums: reducing the risk of criminal allegations

Medical Protection regularly sees allegations of sexual assault or misconduct arising from patient encounters. Dr Emma Davies, Medicolegal Consultant at Medical Protection, looks at why this can happen to a GP locum and how these issues can be managed.

NASGP survey 2023: flexibility, insecurity, community

Five key findings from our November 2023 survey of nearly 800 members.

Starting out as a GP locum

Our well-read and up-to-date advice on how GP locums find and manage work.

Discussing colleagues – advice for GP locums

It is likely that remarks made flippantly about your colleague may carry more weight in the eyes of a patient, given they are coming from a trustworthy professional. 

How LocumDeck’s Instant Book benefits GPs and practices

Discover how Instant Book users on LocumDeck are earning an impressive 12% more on average than their non-Instant Book peers, and how this powerful tool is revolutionising the GP locum market.

Starting out as a GP locum in a rural area

I might grumble at being stuck behind a tractor sometimes but I can’t picture working elsewhere now, writes Dr Nicky Hughes.

Starting out as a GP locum: how to choose which practices to work at in your area

What makes a good GP practice for locum work?

Starting out as a GP locum: ten tips for your first session

Delegate, arrive early, and never cut corners: Dr Leila Saeed advises on ten things she wishes she'd known.

‘We want to put locum myths to bed’: Prof Kieran Walshe, GP locum researcher

Prof Kieran Walshe explains how NIHR-funded research into locums could change work for GP locums.

NASGP CV builder

Get a fresh new CV in minutes with NASGP's free tool for members. 

How to make the most of a career coach

Uncertain work and finances can create stress, writers Dr Caroline Walker, but 2020 might be a fertile year for GP locums to reassess your portfolio career – or even make decisions about a salaried role – with a coach.

Q&A: Dr Chloe Evans on locuming on Shetland

NASGP member Dr Chloe Evans splits her time between Oxford and Shetland. She explains how she works across two areas, and how NASGP membership supports her work

Ten tips for starting out as a GP locum

Dr Richard Fieldhouse lists the skills, products and memberships that will have a positive impact on a new GP locum's career this year

Parents

NASGP membership is completely free from the point you notify us that you’re on parenting leave.

The GP locum tutor

An anoymous survey of GP locums finds that the majority of respondents were very happy with their role and recommended a GP locum career to students thanks to flexibility, workload autonomy and patient care, and reduction of admin and bureaucracy. But GP locums also said they faced isolation, disrespect and difficulty accessing knowledge updates

Ensuring a locum GP is a self-employed contractor, not an employee

There are a number of important differences between employees and self-employed contractors

Life after VTS: my journey to life as a jobbing GP locum

Like many highly skilled professions, a career in general practice can be a journey with obstacles to overcome, barriers to navigate and choices to make. NASGP member Tina Sumner describes how she came to be working as a GP locum and how NASGP has helped her in that journey.

Meet the locum GP specialist

For years, we’ve been calling for recognition that locuming involves performing in a specialised environment requiring at least a mention in formal GP training. We brought that together in a one-day GP locum masterclass with the BMJ.

Systems to 
improve continuity of care

Following on from her previous article Dis-continuity; putting care into context, Dr Sara Chambers explores the idea that sometimes continuity of care is deployed to paper over the cracks where 'continuity of management' and 'information' is lacking or even absent, and why the locum's perspective needs to be part of a future solution.

Dis-continuity – putting 
care into context

Much is made of continuity of care, but little time is spent examining its weaknesses and exploring the alternatives. In the first of a two-part series, Dr Sara Chambers helps put continuity into context.

Should GP locums use WhatsApp to book sessions or jobs?

What you gain in convenience, you lose in the ability to control significant aspects of your practice

Locuming; it takes skill, needs training

Over 2,000 doctors will have qualified as GPs in the last 12 months, each having spent in the region of two years working in at least one, possibly several, GP surgeries, but including training on how to be a GP locum?

The case for 
GP locum chambers

There are many benefits to being part of a chambers if you are a GP locum, but what can you do if there is no chambers in your local area? Dr Richard Fieldhouse provides some advice.

Instant Book – does it sound too scary?

LocumDeck's Instant Book is the key to giving locums control of their work whilst at the same time giving incredible service to practices.

But what if all GPs were locums?

By the time we qualify as GPs, we have some 20,000 ‘bits’ of clinical information stored in our brains at any one time that we can retrieve 24/7 to make a clinical diagnosis within seconds

Podcast | Why did we call it LocumDeck?

It actually took us a while what to call it. Richard Fieldhouse and Sara Chambers help explain not just why we call it LocumDeck, but also something about what it does and how it empowers locum GPs.

Podcast | Get started as a GP locum – Part 1: Equipment, finding work

Sara Chambers and Richard Fieldhouse talk about getting started as a locum GP from the viewpoint of having just qualified.

Management and information continuity of care

Continuity of care, as defined by care given continuously by one doctor, is one of the most oft talked about modalities of care provided by GPs; it’s the one we feel that’s under threat, the one we’re trying to defend, and the one the government has picked up on to protect and promote. It enables us to build therapeutic relationships, and many patients and GPs value it. Indeed, 50% of our consultations are for chronic conditions, where relationship continuity clearly plays a significant role.

Reducing errors and mistakes arising from lack of continuity of care

There are a number of risks when different healthcare professionals are involved in a patient’s care. Continuity of care can be compromised. What are the risks for locum GPs?

When a locum cancels a session

No matter what the reason, the sudden unavailability of a doctor or nurse is at the very least upsetting for patients, and in some cases can have serious adverse consequences on patient care. Practice staff go frantic having to rearrange appointments or find alternative cover.

Does continuity of care need a reality check?

Continuity of care, defined by care given continuously by one doctor, is one of the most frequently talked about modalities of care provided by GPs; it’s the one we collectively feel that’s under threat, the one we’re trying to defend, and the one the government has picked up on to protect and promote.

There has to be an alternative

For many, early retirement seems the only escape from the hamster-wheel of endless effort. And now the Government threatens not only to add out of hours back to the workload of individual practices, but also longer hours and night-time responsibility too.

Setting up a limited company for locum work for GPs

You can potentially save tax/NIC by putting freelance income through a limited company: however, you are not permitted to pension such income through the NHS scheme.

GP locums – When to blow the whistle in the NHS

Should you 'blow the whistle' if you suspect a practice is failing? Dr Judith Harvey provides valuable advice.  

Who wouldn’t want to be a locum?

Walking into an unknown practice to see 30 unknown patients and departing four hours later, leaving not only those patients but also the staff with positive impressions, is a challenge. But for those who can develop the flexibility, being a locum is not just satisfying, it offers an interesting way of life.

GP locums need dedicated training