Speakers' Corner - Powering up London's primary care workfore

In exactly one week 400 of London’s GPs and practice staff will be gathering at the Emirates Stadium to work on the challenges we face and find the solutions to powering up London’s primary care workforce.

We’re focusing on workforce for the conference because a year ago we committed to doing six-monthly workforce surveys of London GP practices and the results have been worrying. November’s survey shows that almost half of practices are short at least one member of staff; a third are missing at least one GP and 39 practices are considering handing back the keys within three years. Thank you again to all those who responded to the previous surveys and please keep us up to date by feeding in to the next one, which will be with you next month. The data is a valuable tool that helps us to best represent your needs.

We’ve got a great line-up next week including some special highlights:

Dr Phil Hammond, NHS associate specialist, broadcaster, Private Eye columnist and former GP who is chairing the day and wants to begin the resuscitation of general practice in London at the conference, through collaboration and ideas sharing.
Lord Victor Adebowale from Turning Point will be speaking about the wider determinants of health; such an important topic when looking at how we’re going to manage challenges like obesity and diabetes.
Dr Crystal Oldman will talk about the practice nursing workforce, because the Queen’s Nursing Institute has done some excellent work studying the pressures on our vital nursing colleagues.
And the afternoon expert panel, which will see Dr Phil Hammond picking the brains of four people who represent a cross section of frontline care and academic health knowledge: Professor Michael West, Head of The King’s Fund; Julie Belton of Cuckoo Lane Practice; Dr Paquita de Zulueta of Imperial College London, and; Dr Clare Gerada of the NHS Practitioner Health Programme.

Our conference picks up the reins from January’s Special Conference of LMCs – which clearly demonstrated that patients risk losing their GPs – even the CQC Approved Outstanding ones - unless the pressures on us are dramatically and appropriately eased. Whether you are a partner, a salaried GP or a freelance locum; whether you are a nurse, a manager, a member of the team, or a patient, the message is clear: general practice is struggling and now is the time for action not words. At our conference I will set out our new campaign to support practices in taking action to highlight the pressure they’re under and take control of their workload.

My ambition for the day is to build on the professional unity we’ve seen gathering momentum over the last year, both in general practice and across the medical profession. After the final session on “One Profession” with Drs Johann Malawana and Clare Gerada, everyone should leave with a sense of empowerment, knowing that they can stand up against all the needless non-work which gets between them and their patients every day.

For more details on speakers, exhibitors and timings see the conference programme. Due to unprecedented demand we reached full capacity some weeks ago so we are adding 25 extra places – but you’ll have to be quick to get one. For those of you who managed to register in time, I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

Last updated : 14 Apr 2016

Data sharing agreement checklist and guidance for practices (21 Aug 2019)

Londonwide LMCS is aware of the increasing complexity and number of information and data sharing agreements (DSAs) and documents which practices are receiving to review and sign. To support practices,...

New CQC guidance section for practices (20 Aug 2019)

In the past 12 months CQC have visited nearly 400 practices in London and found that: 3 were considered outstanding, 300 were considered ‘good’, 57 required improvement, and 23...

Bowel screening update – August 2019 (20 Aug 2019)

NHS England have provided an information sheet to explain the introduction of the faecal immunochemical test (FIT). This replaced the guaiac faecal occult blood test (gFOBt) at the start of...

Tackling social isolation and loneliness to improve health (20 Aug 2019)

Colin Brown, UK Director for Independent Living & Crisis Response at British Red Cross looks at how their expertise will be of use to social prescribing link workers, as they...

Primary care buddying system (20 Aug 2019)

The NHS London Leadership Academy is working with primary care providers to support development in the sector, and to facilitate wider working across the health and social care system. They...

Vaccination update August 2019 (20 Aug 2019)

Hepatitis B in at risk babies Babies born to mothers infected with hepatitis B require a course of hep B vaccination. The first dose is given within 24 hours in...

Londonwide LMCs’ support for Primary Care Network Clinical Directors (20 Aug 2019)

The introduction of the PCN DES means significant changes in the way practices deliver some existing services, and the rolling out of a new range of services. Londonwide LMCs is...

Safeguarding payments and collaborative arrangements (15 Aug 2019)

On 11 July 2019 Dr David Geddes, NHSE/I Director of Primary Care Commissioning, wrote to CCGs and STPs advising that payment for safeguarding activity is not covered by core NHS...

Tips of the month August 2019 (15 Aug 2019)

We provide weekly tips based on common queries which come through to us from London GPs and practice teams. These are shared via social media and collated for...