GPC report for 15 Nov 2018

GPC Report

For East and West Sussex LMCs

Dr Russell Brown

15 November 2018

The GPC met this week.  It was my second meeting this year after a period of absence from work for family reasons.  I am back in the saddle now and all is well.  

There was much time spent on Contract negotiations which are proceeding and I hope to be able to report more soon.  Suffice to say that there is much uncertainty as to long term planning in the NHS as a whole.

There was a lively debate about future ways of working, including Primary Care Networks and Integrated Care Systems, the latest buzz-phrases but towards which we are all moving.  My own feeling is that, essentially, this is the product the NHS wishes to purchase from us and so we should engage with LMCs central in the process so that we can help GPs develop matters to the benefit of patients.  As sure as eggs is eggs, if we leave it to others, they’ll muck it up and damage us in the process.  The fact that the benefits are nebulous and currently have no supporting evidence of benefit whatsoever seems to be an irrelevancy. For what it’s worth, we keep pointing this out, but apparently it will all be wonderful in the new systems.  Who knows?

There was an extensive update from the executive team and policy leads and I will ask the LMC office to attach those documents to this report.  GPC News is 4 pages long.  The Exec and Policy lead document is 14 but is worth at least a skim read to find info that may be relevant to you personally.

The next meeting is Friday 23 November, the LMC England Conference in London, which I shall be attending in my GPC capacity.  After that, we have GPC England in January and GPC UK in March.  You may recall there are fewer meetings now.  I am still unsure whether this is a good thing or not, to be honest.

I hope you have found this report helpful.  Please feedback so that I can ensure my reports are useful.

Dr Russell Brown