Now we are ten
Independent Practitioner Today has been your eyes and ears for ten years now, bringing you news, advice, and opinion in the fast-changing world of private practice.
Here we look back at some of the most memorable front pages – and in our parallel feature, entitled ‘The future of private practice’, leading lights in the sector tell us how they expect your world to change in the decade to come.
Look how we’ve changed too! This was our very first issue – 24 pages – in June 2008
➽ Those were the days – they wouldn’t allow it now. £33k for bringing business to your hospital – February 2009
➽ The first of many tax investigation stories warning of the need to keep meticulous records – May 2009
➽ This July/August 2009 headline summed up how many doctors’ felt about the new recertification process.
➽ Aggressive promotion by specialists abroad was taking its toll – July/August 2010
➽ Doctors were risking professional disaster by failing to increase defence cover to match rising income – February 2011
➽Oops! Research finds over half the calls made to secretaries working for private doctors in the NHS go unanswered – November 2011
➽ Groups were growing – and bust-ups! So get a proper partnership agreement – September 2012
➽ Consultants faced paying the taxman back thousands of pounds after a judge’s ruling on a doctor’s mileage test case – February 2013
➽ A record growth in New Independent Practitioners was underway – March 2014
➽ Doctors’ representatives express ‘serious concerns’ at an AXA PPP bid to cut many fees by around 20% and get more specialists on tie-in contracts – September 2014
➽ Tougher Care Quality Commission inspections on the way: ‘yet another erosion of consultants’ autonomy’ – February 2015
➽ How we reacted to the Care Quality Commission hitting independent practitioners with a 9% rise in charges – April 2015
➽ And now it’s happening…consultants’ prices and performance to be shown on the web – May 2015
➽ We warn that rising indemnity costs could force more specialists out of private practice – April 2016
➽ Accountants fear private doctors in London will feel the financial pain from Brexit – July-August 2016
➽ NHS England proposals to force consultants to reveal private earnings were dropped after this story – October 2016
➽ A change in the ‘discount rate’ sends rocketing defence fees even further into space – March 2017
➽ Too many barriers preventing patients from easily accessing consultants and treatment information – July/August 2017
➽ Keen interest reported in new private hospitals’ salaried service plans for consultants – November 2017
➽ We celebrate our 100th issue in April with 100 private practice tips from the experts compiled from every issue.
➽ We will be bringing you a more detailed look back over the last decade in future issues