On Monday LMC Medical Secretary Dr Saqib Anwar appeared in the Leicester Mercury, as he was approached to provide a view on the BMA Junior Doctors’ ballot on industrial action.
Last Wednesday evening we held our AGM, and there were some lively discussions about the future of general practice, sparked off by our guest speaker Dr Zoe Norris, a GP in Yorkshire who writes for PULSE and the Huffington Post, and is media spokesperson for the pressure group set up by and for GPs, GP Survival. Her theme was ‘GPs are awesome’ – and she urged all GPs to inform their patients about the impending crisis in general practice. She drew our attention to the existence another group, NHS Survival, which is campaigning for a Royal Commission on the NHS.
The next day our chief executive Dr Chris Hewitt received a call from Daily Express journalist Lucy Johnston. We were initially cautious about this, as the Daily Express is not generally noted for its support of GPs. However, they ran a story about the impending crisis in General Practice on the front page of their Sunday edition on 4th October:
There had been a debate at PULSE Live in Liverpool the previous day about mass resignations from the contract.
We were pleased that the Express checked in with us as to what had been discussed at our AGM, and were able to correct an impression our LMC was about to lobby for the immediate resignation of GMS contracts. We held a wide ranging discussion about the pressures on general practice, and what our LMC can do to support our practices with the many problems.
The themes discussed and the valuable feedback from those who came to the AGM will be incorporated into our updated three year business plan, which will be published on our brand new website towards the end of 2015. This informs the LMC’s programme of activities throughout the year.
Hardly had the LMC’s committee members digested their Sunday breakfast after reading this, when the Prime Minister appeared on the Andrew Marr show announcing a new voluntary GP contract.
As ever, the PM was very light on the detail of this, but he remains obsessed with the idea of a 7 day, 8 am to 8pm GP service. He conveniently ignores the fact such a service already exists and that many of his Challenge Fund pilots have slashed their weekend opening hours, due to lack of patient demand.
Neither the BMA or the GPC had been consulted on this issue. We note this contract will be available to practices (or groups of practices) covering populations of 30,000 patients or more. The government continue to push forward the new models of care outlined in the Five Year Forward View, without allowing time for the Challenge Fund pilots to be evaluated.
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