GPC report 15 March 2018

GPC Report
For East and West Sussex LMCs
Dr Russell Brown
15 March 2018

Since my last report in January I am delighted to report you have re-elected me for another three years. I was unopposed, so no actual election took place.  That either means you are in the main happy with how I represent you or that you don't think there's anyone else you'd rather represent you. At least, that's the two options I prefer to consider. Nevertheless, I take the representative role seriously and so would encourage anyone interested to speak to me or Julius about either the GPC visitor scheme or other routes to election. And of course in three years, if you think you could do the job, I would encourage you to stand.

The GPC met on Thursday in Edinburgh.  This was a GPCUK meeting but the day began with an extraordinary GPC England meeting to discuss the progress of contract negotiations. I have delayed my report until details were published.  These can now be found via the Bma website.

Update from the exec team and policy leads:
In the same new format as January, we were provided with a written update from the executive team and policy leads.  A slightly edited version will be published early next week for LMCs. I will ask the LMC office to forward it on when it is released.  It is fairly long but provides much more information that such reports did previously. I find it very helpful but please feedback if you have any comments on it.

Dr Bawa-Garba and the GMC: there have been several meeting between the BMA (led by the Junior Doctors' Committee) and the GMC.  The GMC have made several pledges which can be found on the BMA website here.

Model locum T&Cs are being developed to assist both locums and practices in avoiding and resolving any problems and will provide equal protection for both parties.

We received updates from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  The situations are very different but just as challenging as in England. The Secretary of State wishes to undertake a Partnership model review, and the BMA will be one of the main contributors.

GDPR  
The Information commissioners in all four counties are working on final guidance.  The GPC will shortly be publishing adaptable templates for practices' policy posters.  I understand that GPs will be able to act as Data Processing Officers.

Following on from the themed debate at LMC Conference in Liverpool the week before, GPC discussed the Workload recommendations.  Hubs are still a popular model but are not without their issues.  Given the shortage of GPs generally and the often skeleton staff employed out of hours, it is difficult to see where clinicians manning the hubs are going to be found. Additionally, all these pathways of care are often confusing enough for us, never mind our patients.  As I may have mentioned before, we need demand management as otherwise workload management is going to fail. Compared to elsewhere in Europe, we see patients far more often per year for similar health outcomes.

We also had policy group meetings in the afternoon, essentially the old subcommittee meetings. In the Working at Scale Policy group that I work in, we discussed the STP agenda and our concerns with it as well as discussing pharmacists, allied professionals and the difficulty of making a success of things when agendas of different parties fail to mesh.

Separately to GPC I have been working within the BMA on a work stream called "Living our values", a response to some historical concerns about the way in which relationships within the BMA are managed.  In particular, trying to assist committee members to see that their behaviour may cause difficulties for others, given that there are often unconscious biases which may disadvantage certain groups such as women. This is a work in progress.  I am hoping it will lead to better, more inclusive and representatives policies within the Association.

The next GPC meeting is in May, a GPC England meeting being held in London.  I hope you have found this report helpful.  Please feedback so that I can ensure my reports are useful. 
Dr Russell Brown