2016 LMC Conference - Dr Michelle Drage
Dr Michelle Drage shares her thoughts on the 2016 LMC Annual Conference, held on 20 May in London.
Along with the rest of England, London’s general practices are now in a state of emergency, and it is clear that patients risk losing their GPs unless pressures are dramatically eased. We are at breaking point. That’s not safe for patients or staff.
This was the essence of the debate at the National LMCs’ conference last week where, in a packed auditorium, in front of the great and the good of the BMA GPC, GP after GP took to the podium to plead for action and call for support for general practice before it is too late.
Dr Jackie Applebee, Chair of Tower Hamlets LMC, proposed Motion 20 (see below) and Londonwide LMCs representatives speaking to it included Tower Hamlets colleague Dr Naomi Beer, Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer and myself. For your reference the NHS England Five Year Forward View published in October 2014 promised “stabilisation of GP funding” by October 2016. With real GMS MPIG reductions and PMS reviews the reality is this stabilisation is clearly not being implemented on the ground. While the GP Forward View offers promises of cash by 2020, it does not deliver the solutions we need in London right now. And so conference made its views crystal clear and passed Motion 20 overwhelmingly.
Watch Conference speeches on motion 20 here, my speech is 01:09:40 in.
Motion 20 – full wording
That conference does not accept the General Practice Forward View is an adequate response to the GPCs statement of need within the BMAs Urgent Prescription for General Practice, and considering this to be sufficient grounds for a trade dispute, unless the government agrees to accept the Urgent Prescription within 3 months of this conference, the GPC should ask the BMA to:
(i) ballot the profession on their willingness to sign undated resignations
(ii) ballot the profession on their willingness to take industrial action
(iii) ballot the profession as to what forms of industrial action they are prepared to take
(iv) produce a report to practices on the options for taking industrial action that doesn’t breach their contracts
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