Knowledgebase

Our extensive library available to members, covering everything from clinical practice and risk to wellbeing and money. With expert guidance from specialist partners.

Management of back pain and sciatica

This is an updated guideline from NICE on the management of low back pain and sciatica. There is quite a bit that is new in this guideline, but it probably doesn't really add much to our current management

Orthopaedics

NASGP end of year survey 2020

Tell us your plans for 2021 and help NASGP design services for you.

Working as a GP

Q&A: How NASGP Locum Chambers manage complaints and significant events

Complaints and significant events can be a stressful part of a GP locum’s career, especially when faced alone. But they also pose an opportunity to improve patient satisfaction, and support the GP locum to learn and grow

Complaints

Parents

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

GP locum chambers

Locum chambers are small, independent groups of local self-employed GP locums all working together through a shared management and clinical governance structure. They support NHS GP practices and locums to maintain, and in some cases improve, local GP services.

Locum chambers

Preparing for a  Covid-19 winter

Dr Rachel Birch, medicolegal consultant at MPS, provides advice and practical tips for locum GPs

The ‘firefighter fiasco’: how age discrimination in public pensions affects GP locums

The Government has confirmed that changes made to firefighters’ pension in 2015 were age-discriminatory, and they will impact all public sector pensions

Money Matters

Financial advice for GP locums working ‘overtime’

Beware of unforeseen financial impact on NHS pension, national insurance and tax, specialist medical accountant Liz Densley advises

Judith Harvey: Learning to live  with masks

Masks are uncomfortable, your glasses steam up, they muffle sounds and restrict facial expressions. It’s difficult to know if you are wearing them correctly. You can’t eat, drink or smoke wearing a mask. Or kiss.

Judith Harvey

e-learning – Iron deficiency in pregnancy

An October 2019 guideline from BSH on managing iron deficiency in pregnancy has a few interesting points, particularly for GP locums facing requests from midwives to prescribe iron

Obstetrics

Remote working: the blurred line between triage and consultation

It is imperative that triage and consultation are recognised as unique, and different, skills by partners and professional bodies

Fremanezumab for preventing migraine

Although fremanezumab seems to be effective in episodic migraine, it hasn't been approved as it isn't felt to be cost-effective

NASGP’s legal advice on NHS Pension ‘Death in Service’ benefits

Thanks to generous donations from NASGP members, we commissioned advice from specialist employment lawyer Ray Levy and barrister Mary O’Rourke QC on ‘Continual Service Contracts' and death in service benefits during Covid-19

e-learning – Long term macrolide use in respiratory conditions

Most of the time, long term macrolide therapy will be initiated in secondary care. However, we may well be the ones writing the prescription, so it is worth being aware of some of the safety concerns

Working as a freelance GP locum

Everything any GP needs to know about stepping into the exciting world of working as a GP locum

Working as a salaried GP

Frequently-asked questions about practice, paperwork and training as a salaried GP

Risk management

The Medical Protection Society has supported the NASGP for over 10 years with help and advice for sessional GPs around the management of risk

Code of Good Practice

NASGP has a continued aim to promote high standards of medical care. In doing so the NASGP has detailed its Code of Good Practice, which endorses the GMCs ‘Good Medical Practice’

Standardised Practice Information Portal

NASGP’s free Standardised Practice Information Portal (Spip) allows every practice to store, share and retrieve all those ever-changing practice-specific phone numbers, email addresses, contact details, policies, guidelines, soft intelligence and service changes in one easy-to-find place at the moment you need it

Beware the old normal

As the government starts to ease lockdown, Judith Harvey questions what it is that we are easing ourselves back into

Judith Harvey

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

e-learning – Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA)

NICE guidance from March 2020 advises that men over 65 should be offered routine screening for AAA

Vascular

Tax-free  childcare (TFC) scheme during Covid-19

If you or your spouse/partner have ‘adjusted income’ under £100,000 in this tax year, you may be entitled to support under new rules

Reducing risk  on busy days

Dr Rachel Birch from MPS provides practical advice on how GP locums can catch omissions such as missed referrals, and prevent similar incidents in future

e-learning – Tinnitus

Mental health comes to the fore in new NICE guidance, published March 2020

Death-in-service benefits from the NHS: Are you returning to work due to COVID-19?

Find out about the death in service benefit, and private options available to GP locums returning to work during lockdown

e-learning – Leg ulcer infection: antibiotic prescribing

A NICE update on antibiotic prescribing for leg ulcers published in February 2020 includes a good visual guide to best practice

e-learning | Sotagliflozin with insulin for type 1 diabetes

A new guideline from NICE from February 2020 advises that sotagliflozin can be used alongside insulin for type 1 diabetes

GP locums and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS)

Advice for GP locums claims SEISS income support during lockdown after losing work: who's eligible and how to claim

e-learning | New treatments for hyperkalaemia

New guidelines from NICE update the guidance on prescribing sodium zirconium cyclosilicate and patiromer

A lockdown diary – a journal of our times

NASGP's columnist records the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK: Ocado queues, home haircuts and a temporary reprieve from FOMO

Judith Harvey

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) investigation and management – new NICE advice

PERC tests, anticoagulants, D-dimers, stockings and cancer investigations: a stack of new advice on VTE in guidance

Medicolegal risks for GP locums during Covid-19

GP locums may be asked to work in new ways in unfamiliar environments as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. Dr Rachel Birch, medicolegal consultant at MPS, advises on dilemmas they may face

Podcast | The Sessional GP Magazine April 2020

Richard Fieldhouse recaps the latest issue of the Sessional GP magazine: financial support for locums, medicolegal advice on remote working, a GP locum's lockdown diary and a clinical update on treating leg ulcers