As we approach the festive season and things (hopefully!) begin to wind down at work, we thought we’d look back at the main events this year, and take a look at what’s in the pipeline for 2025…

Here’s a few of our highlights, and a quick word about what you can expect from us in 2025. But before we do, we want to say a huge thank you to you – our valued customers – for being with us for another year, and helping us to support you and your patients.

All the way back in January we kicked off the year in style by launching our brand-new website, with its focus on new sectors like Dental and Care, as well as GP practices and PCNs. We also refreshed our Thornfields website and created a brand new blog for it.

In February we marked National Apprenticeship Week, highlighting the “Skills for Life” theme through our fantastic Apprenticeships that we offer in partnership with Cherith Simmons. The best thing? They are all up to 100% government-funded! Click here to read the article again. We also celebrated Care Day in the same month, with special resources including a carer’s dictionary and a roundup of all the ways we support healthcare professionals in the care sector.

April saw a welcome return by one of our most popular webinar presenters, Phil Harnby of Mitchell Grievson Chartered Accountants. He presented a well-attended session on the new GP Contract (and you can view the recording of it and all our webinars here).

Also that month our HR expert Ciara Burns took a look at all the statutory entitlement changes that came in. She also wrote an article explaining one of the year’s key legislative developments – the Carer’s Leave Act.

May saw yet another legislative development – and Ciara was on hand to explain everything you need to know about the Protection from Redundancy Act.

June was a busy month, as we revealed the Ultimate Guide to Workplace Grievances, as well as our great guide to Reviewing Supplier Contracts. But it was also the month we collaborated with the ‘green GP’ (Dr Matthew Sawyer) on the perennially important topic of How Sustainability Can Save Money & Lives in Your Organisation. There was also the small matter of an historic General Election…

But the summer brought worrying news of the Care Quality Commission being under investigation amid reports of poor performance. This is a story that will run long into 2025, as there are reports that the Single Assessment Framework that we have all spent so long getting to know may be changed or even scrapped entirely. Watch this space for more news on that.

In August we also held our Safer Recruitment webinar which addressed a common question healthcare professionals have: how do you know the qualifications and experience your employees have are actually true? We also discussed what could be learnt from the key Employment Tribunal cases of the year so far, and discussed the issues around the CQC’s new Single Assessment Framework and how they could be fixed.

September brought news of the Darzi Review into the health of the NHS, and of potential changes that the new Labour government might make to employment laws.

The other main news of the autumn has been the 2024 Budget, an historic moment for the nation’s finances, and one which gave everyone in the healthcare sector much food for thought. Read how its provisions could affect you here.

What to Look Forward To in 2025:

• More Great Expert-Led Thornfields Webinars – starting with our ‘Blue Monday’ webinar about how to cope with the post-Christmas blues, held on Wednesday 15th January, from 12.30-1.15pm.
• Great New Features on FPM Core: following on from the new features we introduced to market-leading compliance system throughout 2024 like policy quizzes, webinar and universal search, we’ll be adding more tools and quality of life updates in 2025.
• The same great news and analysis about the issues that matter to you – key topics will include the CQC as they seek to improve and re-adjust how they inspect providers, employment legislation changes, and of course funding.

Until then, have a wonderful Christmas and we’ll see you in the new year!

Best wishes,

The FPM Team