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The Week in Practice | 19 October 2026
Every Monday, Pavilion Health Today brings you a quick briefing on the clinical developments that matter to UK doctors in the Week in Practice.
📢 Your Monday briefing for UK doctors. Start your week informed with the Week in Practice.
💊 Clinical news
Last week, the NHS rolled out new digital updates for patients’ prescriptions across England. Millions of people can now receive an alert on their smartwatch or mobile when their prescription is ready for collection. Patients at nearly 2, 2,500 chemists, including every ASDA and Boots pharmacy, can now receive these updates in the NHS App instead of phoning pharmacies.
💡 Practice point
The government has announced it will invest almost £140 million in 14 new urgent care schemes across England, including urgent treatment centres, same-day emergency care services, new ambulance fleets, and emergency department upgrades, providing a significant increase in frontline and urgent care capacity.
🔬 Research in practice
New research found that females with autoimmune diseases reported more challenging diagnostic journeys than males. The high number of reported psychiatric and psychosomatic misdiagnoses in both sexes may also reflect the challenges of interpreting presenting and evolving symptoms of autoimmunity. This is particularly relevant for primary care, where most patients will initially present.
📌 On the radar
NHS leaders are calling for social care to be ‘urgently’ put on an equal footing with the health service following the publication of the latest Skills for Care ‘State of Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce’ report. The report found that longstanding issues with pay, working conditions and access to training have made it harder to recruit and retain staff, contributing to workforce shortages across the sector.
🗣 Alerts
A national patient safety alert has been issued for blood ketone testing strips after Nova Biomedical identified quality issues affecting specified lots of StatStrip ketone test strips. The Department of Health and Social Care says organisations should stop clinical use and dispose of all lots Nova identified as subject to recall.
