Planning Your Medical Future: The Essential Guide for Professional Success

1. This is Your Future SO PLEASE THINK VERY CAREFULLY

2. Searching for the Practice of your choice • Where, if you could choose, would you like to settle in Practice for the next 5 years? • What do you feel that you need to do before settling down? • What factors will influence or could dictate your place of settling down?

3. Searching for your Next or Long Term Job • How do you find out about possible jobs? • How do you find out the details and inside stories of a potential Practice? • How do you find out what they may be looking for? • How can you find out if they are what you are looking for?

4. Details of Your Ideal Practice Number of Drs:- Sex, Age, W.T.E., Ext Interests Setting:- Inner City, Rural , Semi-Rural, Mixed Size:- Patient Numbers and Ethos of Care Special Features:- Teaching, Local Hospital, Medical admin, Ext Attachments Dispensing:- Dispensing or non dispensing (personally administered items)

5. Factors Affecting Your Workload • Make up of medical staff profile • Details of patient profile • Setup and ethos of the Practice • Education Commitment • Outside interests of all doctors • Factors evident from the 1yr and/or 5yr plan

6. Ethos of practice • Towards the Patients • Towards Staff • How to draw the line between money and ethics • Does the Local Doctor or the Local Practice have a roll in your area?

7. Lets Talk Pennies • What might I expect to earn as a Partner? • What might I expect as a Salaried Practitioner? • What might I expect as a Locum? • What might I expect as an OOH practitioner? • What might I expect as an entrepreneur?

8. Buy In or Not Buy In • Legal/financial status of the Practice Premises • How does the Practice cover the expense? • NHS Logistical arrangements to provide facilities for all patients • NHS Financial agreement which ensures the provision of Premises • If I buy in where will I get the money? • How can I repay the loan? • What happens if I leave? • What happens if I don’t buy in?

9. How Does the Practice Actually Work? • Who actually runs a Practice? • How is legal probity ensured? • How may the new plans impinge on the autonomy of our future Practices?

10. Practice Finance • What is the effects of QOF? • Patient participation groups • Extended Hours • Basket of Services • Enhanced Services

11. Practice Finance – cont • Target Payments – childhood immunisations • Dispensing/Personally administered items

12. Take care of the penniesand the pounds take care of themselves • The Wise man he say “Income – Expenditure = Profit” • Profit represents that amount of money to be distributed amongst the partners. • How is the money distributed • Income • Expenditure

13. Is CQC Friend or foe? • What is CQC? • How does it, or how will it work? • What may it mean to us?

14. Let’s Peek into the Possible Future • Little change from present, may be a little tighter • Is OOH going to return to Primary Care? • Government wholesale buy out of individual Practices and run as secondary care. • Private sector takes over a progressively larger percentage of primary care • Private insurance takes over a larger part of primary care