Local authority reports and letters reimbursement under collaborative arrangements
Dr Elliott Singer, Medical Director at Londonwide LMCs, recently wrote to the local authorities (LAs) in the 27 London boroughs covered by Londonwide LMCs to raise the issue of practices not being reimbursed for work done for LAs in the fields of education, social services and public health. Practices have an obligation to do this work under 'collaborative arrangements', but it is not part of their NHS contract and therefor needs to be resourced by the LA requesting a report, letters, etc.
Template letters and forms for practices can be downloaded here, the wording of Dr Singer's letter is below.
- Letter and invoice template to Local Authority regarding requests for Collaborative Arrangement payments safeguarding
- Letter and invoice template to Local Authority regarding requests for Collaborative Arrangement payments
Background on GPs and LAs' oblications under collaborative arrangements can be found in this newsletter item from 2017.
Dear Mr/Ms,
Child safeguarding reports and other collaborative arrangement payments
I am writing to you on behalf of [name of LMC] LMC, the statutory body which represents local general practitioners in your area, regarding payments for child safeguarding reports and other collaborative payments.
Primary care demand has been increasing year on year both in volume and complexity, with less than 8% of the NHS budget being invested in general practice. Patients frequently attend GP appointments with requests which do not form part of their NHS provisioned healthcare.
Collaborative arrangements refer to work that doctors can undertake on behalf of local authorities in the fields of education, social services and public health. This is to enable general practices to be appropriately resourced to undertake tasks that are not covered by the GP NHS contract, examples include family planning, psychiatric work, reports for adoption, fostering, children in care and priority housing, Community service certificates for offenders who fail to attend, visiting medical officers to local authority-maintained establishments, and attendance at case conference arranged by social services. Services provided under the 'collaborative arrangements' have been negotiated at a local level dependent upon the individual needs of an area. This work, that goes beyond the provision of basic health care, does attract a fee.
NHS England will be conducting an audit into the legacy arrangements for collaborative fees and seeking to agree with local authorities, a more consistent approach. However currently, Area Teams, pending the development of more consistent future arrangements, have been told to maintain any arrangements for collaborative fees that were previously managed by PCTs.
Disappointingly, we are receiving reports from general practices across the capital that despite the arrangements in place, as set out above, practices are not receiving payments for the work they do under collaborative arrangements. It is imperative that GPs and our practice teams are paid to undertake this work and do not divert resources away from their primary role of providing expert generalist care to individual patients in order to complete the statutory tasks of other bodies. We respectfully request that [name of borough] honours these collaborative arrangements. I attach copies of the template invoices that general practices are being encouraged to utilise.
Many thanks for your help and support.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Elliott Singer
Medical Director Londonwide LMCs and General Practice State of Emergency Lead
Last updated : 10 Dec 2018
Patient Online November 2016 update (24 Nov 2016)
The contractual requirements for online access have expanded every year since the 2014/15 contract introduced patient online. Current contractual requirements mean that practices should now offer online booking of appointments,...Waltham Forest GP recognised for contribution to international mental health (23 Nov 2016)
The World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) which represents over 550,000 doctors across 150 countries and territories has awarded the WONCA Fellowship to...Londonwide LMCs gains Investors in People Silver award (23 Nov 2016)
On 11 October we were assessed for our Investors in People Silver award, we met the accreditation standards and received confirmation of the award at the start of November. The...Guest blog - Managing COPD with Dr Azhar Saleem (16 Nov 2016)
Dr Azhar Saleem is a sessional GP with an interest in respiratory medicine. He is co-lead of RightBreathe, an inhaler prescribing tool for clinicians and patients. He is currently the...New Patient Online toolkit for GP practices (20 Oct 2016)
The Patient Online (POL) programme has released a toolkit to help GP practices promote online services to patients, specifically ordering repeat prescriptions, booking appointments and viewing medical records. The toolkit...Practice mergers guidance (20 Oct 2016)
More practices are choosing to merge as a way of meeting the workforce and financial challenges that GPs face. We have produced a new guide to help practices through this...October 2016 newsletter (20 Oct 2016)
Staying up to date (19 Oct 2016)
In order to keep you and your practice colleagues up to date with news and developments in primary care, as well as being able to access practical support and advice,...Don’t forget to access our State of Emergency resources (19 Oct 2016)
Earlier this year GPs in London and across the country declared a GP State of Emergency. The aim of our GP State of Emergency campaign is to help GPs...Five Year Forward View – two years on (19 Oct 2016)
24 October marks two years on from the launch of NHS England's Five Year Foward View. The document said it would stabilise general practice core funding withing two years. ...Guidance
We provide expert guidance for practices in our guidance section, as well as an archive of other materials you may find useful.
GP Support
Contact our GP Support team if you need help or advice.
The team provide professional and pastoral support to GPs and practice teams on a broad range of issues.