December Newsletter

As 2025 draws to a close, Belmatt Healthcare Training would like to celebrate another year of growth, innovation, and learning across the UK primary care workforce. This year has highlighted the importance of high-quality clinical training and the need for skilled, confident practitioners across general practice, urgent care, community services, and advanced practice roles.In this festive update, we share key course announcements, highlights from our teaching programme, and reflections on national developments shaping the future of healthcare.

Christmas Offer Extended – 25% OFF All Courses Until 15 December

Due to extremely high demand, our Black Friday offer has been extended.

Enjoy 25% off all Belmatt courses until 15 December 2025 using code: BF25

This discount applies to:

• Live online training
• Classroom courses
• Specialist CPD sessions
• On-demand recorded modules

It’s the perfect opportunity to plan your CPD, strengthen your clinical skills, or prepare your team for the workforce challenges ahead.

Funding vs. Demand: A Growing Gap in Primary Care

Although the Chancellor’s budget introduced several positive funding streams, particularly for digital upgrades, community-based interventions, and primary care infrastructure, many GP practices continue to experience significant real-terms financial pressure. Rising operational costs, workforce shortages, and increasingly complex patient needs are outpacing the financial support available, creating a widening gap between what practices are resourced for and what they are expected to deliver. In practical terms, this means that practice income is not keeping pace with inflation, leaving many organisations struggling to maintain baseline services. Patient lists continue to grow, and the rising prevalence of multimorbidity adds considerable time and complexity to every consultation. Administrative burden is also increasing, yet the funding uplift does not reflect these pressures.

While the budget supports digital transformation, investment in online consultation platforms, cloud-based systems and remote technology comes with additional hidden costs, including training, IT support, and change management. These essential components often fall outside the scope of national allocations, stretching already limited practice budgets. At the same time, workforce expansion efforts rely heavily on upskilling existing clinicians, yet protected learning time and ring-fenced CPD funding remain limited. Practices are expected to deliver high-quality preventative care, chronic disease optimisation, population health management and enhanced access targets, all within tight financial constraints.

This widening gap between funding and demand highlights the increasing importance of efficient clinical pathways, accurate coding, streamlined workflow systems, and investment in workforce capability-building. High-quality training, such as coding and summarising, minor illness assessment, physical examination skills, and prescribing updates, is no longer optional. It is essential for maintaining clinical safety, improving QOF performance, supporting ICS and PCN objectives, and ensuring long-term sustainability within the evolving primary care landscape. We will soon be introducing our workshops on preparing for a CQC visit in the community.

New Coding & Summarising Course: Improving Data Quality, Clinical Safety and Practice Efficiency

We are excited to announce the launch of our new Coding & Summarising Course, designed specifically for GP practices and delivered by Dr Jay Verma, GP Partner and nationally recognised expert in clinical data quality. This programme has already been successfully implemented in several London practices, where feedback has highlighted significant improvements in workflow clarity, coding consistency, and overall data accuracy. Dr Verma brings exceptional expertise in EMIS and System One optimisation, coding accuracy, QOF performance, and high impact data cleaning strategies. His practical, real-world approach helps practices understand not only what needs to be coded correctly, but why it matters and how accurate data underpins the entire foundation of modern primary care.

Why this training makes a real difference to patient care

Accurate, well-structured coding is more than administrative housekeeping; it is central to safe clinical decision-making and effective population health management. When coding is done well:

• Clinicians have a clearer picture of a patient’s history, risks and long-term conditions
• Continuity of care improves, especially across MDT teams
• QOF, IIF and PCN reporting becomes more accurate, boosting practice income
• Risk is reduced through clearer documentation and fewer missed diagnoses
• Workload becomes more manageable with less duplication and fewer errors

Several of the London practices we have recently supported reported that coding improvements led to better chronic disease oversight, more targeted recalls, and smoother collaboration between clinicians and administrative teams. Many described the course as “eye-opening”, “immediately implementable”, and “one of the most impactful training sessions we’ve invested in”.

Why practices should get in touch

With increasing pressure on practices to deliver improved outcomes, stronger prevention, and robust population health data, this course is not just beneficial, it is strategically essential. Practices that invest in coding and summarising training gain:

• Immediate workflow improvements
• Better risk management and safer clinical delivery
• Clearer QOF and chronic disease capture
• More efficient use of GP and MDT time
• Stronger alignment with digital transformation goals

This course is ideal for GPs, clinical pharmacists, ANPs, ACPs, practice managers, administrators, and anyone involved in data quality improvement. If your practice or PCN is looking to improve documentation standards, streamline workload, enhance income, and strengthen clinical safety, we would love to support you. Contact us at Belmatt Healthcare Training to arrange a tailored session for your team. Email: [email protected].

Upcoming Course: Physical Examination & Clinical Assessment – 16–17 December

London:  16–17 December 2025 Venue:  Classroom Teaching | Hayes, London

Bradford: 26 and 27 January 2026 Case-based, practical, hands-on clinical skills training

This highly popular, immersive course is designed to help clinicians develop the examination skills, assessment frameworks, and diagnostic confidence required for safe practice across general practice, urgent care, and community health settings.

This programme is ideal for clinicians who are:

Preparing for prescribing OSCEs (V300/IP)

Transitioning into Advanced Clinical Practice (ACP) roles

Expanding their clinical scope within primary care or urgent care

Seeking to strengthen their confidence in history-taking, physical exam skills and clinical decision-making

Looking to improve assessment accuracy and red-flag recognition

Whether you’re a GP, ANP, ACP, physician associate, clinical pharmacist, paramedic, or nurse expanding your assessment role, this course offers the comprehensive practical skills needed to support safe, effective patient management.

The programme offers hands-on, case-based learning, focusing on examination techniques and clinical reasoning across the major body systems:

 ENT Examination

Cardiovascular Assessment

Respiratory Examination

Abdominal Assessment

 Musculoskeletal (MSK) Examination

Neurological Examination

Red-Flag Recognition & Escalation

Each session integrates real-world case scenarios, red flags, differential diagnoses, risk assessment, and practical components to help clinicians transfer learning directly into practice. Primary care continues to face growing pressure—rising demand, increasing complexity, and expanding ACP roles. Clinicians are expected to assess, diagnose, and manage patients confidently and safely. By investing in high-quality examination training, practices ensure their workforce is confident, competent, and able to meet the demands of modern primary care.

Prescribing Update Conference – 25 March 2026

We’re also delighted to highlight our flagship Prescribing Update Conference on 25 March 2026, a must-attend national online event designed to equip practising prescribers with the latest evidence-based guidance and real-world clinical insights. This year’s programme features an exceptional line-up of expert speakers, including Dr Hayley Jenkins, who will deliver an essential update on prescribing in contraception, women’s health, menopause and sexual health—areas experiencing rapid guideline changes and increasing complexity in primary care. Dr Varun Kumar will be presenting on prescribing in dermatology, offering practical strategies for managing common and complex skin conditions safely and effectively. We are also joined by Ashifa Trivedi, Paediatric Pharmacist, who will cover safe prescribing for children, a crucial area where dosing, formulation choice, and risk assessment can significantly impact outcomes. Alongside sessions on NICE updates, antimicrobial stewardship, GINA and GOLD respiratory guidance, polypharmacy, and case-based prescribing challenges, this conference provides an essential CPD opportunity for IPs, ACPs, ANPs, clinical pharmacists, paramedics and GP trainees seeking to refine their prescribing skills and stay current with national standards.
 Full programme & registration: https://www.belmatt.co.uk/our-courses/prescribing-update-webinar-25-march-2026/ 

Looking Ahead to 2026

We are excited to expand our training portfolio next year with:

• New advanced practice masterclasses
• Updated respiratory, paediatrics and dermatology modulesOn-demand clinical decision-making courses
• Expanded physical examination programmes
• Bespoke training packages for PCNs and GP practices

Belmatt remains dedicated to supporting the changing needs of the primary care workforce with accessible, flexible, evidence-based education.

Thank you for learning, growing and leading with us in 2025. Your commitment to patient care and continuous learning inspires everything we do. We wish you a peaceful, joyful and restorative fetsive season.

 Explore all courses: www.belmatt.co.uk
 Use code BF25 for 25% off until 15 December