Medical Centre

 The Parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee states that the Government’s vaccination strategy is ‘a failure’ and should be replaced with a new plan. Vaccination rates in the UK have been falling since around 2012 when pressures on GP services began to increase. A key part of the solution to improving childhood vaccination rates in not to create new services like “family hubs” but to invest in core general practice services to increase primary care capacity. This needs to be combined with greater incentives for childhood vaccination. A successful vaccination strategy must strengthen and not sideline general practice. Without substantial reinvestment in general practice and improved incentives, any new structures will struggle to reverse the long-term decline in childhood vaccination coverage in the UK. GPs provide continuity, trusted relationships, accurate records, recalls, and opportunistic vaccination; all of which are  essential for high uptake. When GP capacity is ...

General practitioners and emergency medicine doctors in the UK are increasingly encountering patients who return from overseas with complications following medical procedures. These cases can often be  challenging to manage. Frequently, there is limited or no access to operative notes, discharge summaries, or detailed information about the techniques and materials used, making clinical assessment and safe follow-up difficult. The complications themselves are often complex, including serious infections, wound breakdown, thromboembolic events, and implant-related problems. Many require urgent specialist input. GPs are typically the first point of contact and must manage patient distress, clinical uncertainty, and risk, while navigating referral decisions in the absence of clear guidance or established care pathways. For patients, the lower cost of surgical procedures overseas can be an appealing alternative to private care in the UK. However, this often comes at the expense of struct...

 As artificial intelligence (AI) become increasingly embedded in routine healthcare - supporting tasks such as triage, documentation, interpretation of investigation, diagnosis and patient communication - it introduces new patient safety risks through incorrect outputs (“hallucinations”) that should be treated as safety errors rather than technical glitches. In our article in the Journal of Patient Safety , we argue that primary care must extend its established safety culture to AI by systematically detecting, classifying, reporting, and learning from AI-related errors using principles already applied to human error, such as audit, governance, and incident reporting.  We highlight evidence that AI-generated clinical text can contain omissions, fabrications, or unsafe recommendations that may not be apparent to clinicians and patients and that risk becoming “silent errors” in electronic health records. These errors can then contribute to cognitive offloading if clinicians over-...

Influenza remains a major cause of preventable illness each winter and continues to place significant pressure on NHS general practices, urgent care services, and hospitals. This has been particularly evident this winter, with flu rates much higher than we would normally expect for this time of year.  As of mid-December 2025, UKHSA surveillance shows influenza positivity in primary-care sentinel samples running well above most pre-COVID seasons, and hospital and ICU admissions for confirmed influenza are rising sharply — especially among adults aged 65 and over and those with long-term medical conditions. In general practice, we see first-hand how flu can lead to severe complications, particularly in older adults, people with underlying conditions, and those who are immunocompromised. Vaccination remains the single most effective way to reduce the risk of severe illness, hospitalisation, and death from flu. Interim data for the 2025–26 season suggest that vaccination is already red...

Our article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine argues that safe and effective AI in healthcare must incorporate mechanisms that emulate human judgement - down-weighting old, inaccurate or superseded information and prioritising what is recent, clinically relevant and reaffirmed - so that AI supports, rather than disrupts, high-quality patient care.  Clinicians constantly revise, reinterpret and filter past information so that only what is relevant, accurate and timely shapes present-day management decisions; medical records function as dynamic “working tools” rather than fixed archives. By contrast, many AI systems lack this capacity for selective forgetting and often treat all historical data as equally meaningful.  This can lead to outdated or low-confidence diagnoses being repeatedly resurfaced, persistent labels influencing clinical expectations, and irrelevant, long-resolved events cluttering summaries and decision-support outputs. Such indiscriminate recall...

The UK government’s forthcoming review of mental health and neurodevelopmental diagnoses presents an opportunity to improve the healthcare and benefits system if the potential risks are averted. Rising rates of conditions such as ADHD, autism, and anxiety disorders have raised questions about whether we are seeing a genuine increase in need or greater awareness and possible over-diagnosis. A thoughtful, evidence-based review could help bring much-needed clarity. But if mishandled, it could deepen inequalities and undermine support for those who need it most. Done well, the review could improve diagnostic quality and reduce the postcode lottery that too often defines access to assessment and treatment. Clearer clinical standards and properly funded services would allow professionals to make more accurate diagnoses, shorten long waiting lists, and better match interventions to individuals’ needs. This is an outcome everyone should welcome. But the review must not become a vehicle for re...

The announcement of a new UK-US pharmaceuticals deal is an important change in the UK’s approach to how new medicines are evaluated, priced and adopted. Faster access to innovative treatments for conditions such as cancer will be welcomed by patients and professionals. The increased investment in medicines may also help the UK attract more clinical research.  However, the impact of the proposals will depend on implementation. Raising NICE’s cost-effectiveness thresholds will increase overall NHS spending on medicines. Without a corresponding investment in areas such as workforce, diagnostics and primary care, there is a risk that higher drug spending could divert resources from other parts of the NHS. A more flexible pricing environment could also reduce the UK’s future negotiating leverage with industry. Maintaining NICE’s independence will be essential to maintain both public and professional confidence in its decision-making. The changes have could benefit patients and strength...