🩺 GP ‘Mind the Gap’ Campaign – Working Together for Better Patient Care
On 1st September 2025, General Practice across the country, including here in Oldham, launched the ‘Mind the Gap’ campaign. This campaign is designed to improve patient care and safety by tackling inappropriate transfers of work to GP practices and identifying unfunded service gaps that affect the care we can provide.
Over the years, General Practice has taken on many extra responsibilities outside of our contracted work, often completing tasks that should be handled by other healthcare providers. This has contributed to rising workloads, appointment pressures, and delays. The ‘Mind the Gap’ campaign aims to address this — so that GPs can focus on what we are trained and resourced to do: looking after you.
What this means in practice
In Oldham, we are asking for certain commissioning gaps to be resolved. For example, we are working to ensure that services such as Dermatology and ADHD clinics can prescribe and request their own medications and tests, instead of asking GPs to do so. This helps reduce delays for patients and unnecessary extra work for practices.
We have asked hospitals to:
Request and action their own tests (e.g. blood tests, x-rays)
Avoid asking GPs to repeat or chase results
Provide fit (sick) notes for the required duration
Prescribe and supply new medications (GPs can continue later if appropriate)
Discharge patients with at least two weeks of medication
Make referrals to other hospital departments themselves
We have asked community services to:
Maternity: Manage their own prescriptions and test results
Podiatry: Stop sending prescription requests and chasing swab results through GPs
District Nursing: Avoid prescription requests and use authorisation forms only for end-of-life medication
Shared care and high-risk medications
GPs are currently not funded to prescribe and monitor certain high-risk medications. Until funding is in place, hospitals and specialist services will remain responsible for these prescriptions and ongoing monitoring.
Supporting a sustainable future for General Practice
We understand that these changes may take time to fully implement and may cause some initial frustration. However, this campaign is a vital step toward ensuring GPs can focus on patient care — safely, effectively, and sustainably.
We appreciate your understanding and support as we work together to strengthen the services that matter most to you.