Avon LMCs Newsletter on 06-03-24

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The ALMC Newsletter

Welcome to our weekly newsletter, sharing the latest news and topics of interest for practices.

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– LATEST NEWS –

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Hello, I’m Mandy Williams I have been with the LMC since 2001 in many different roles over the years. Over recent years you will probably know me from organising Training for HCPs and GPs.
 
In my new role as Junior Executive Assistant, I will be the operational support for the Board and Organisation. I will also be managing the DBS Service.
 
If you need to contact me, please email mandy@almc.co.uk

Firstly, thank you for your engagement with the Practice resilience survey so far. We have had approximately half of BNSSG practices complete the survey and encourage those who have not already, to do so. To establish the impact, we encourage each practice to complete the survey individually, rather than as part of a group or PCN.
 
To complete the survey please use the link. https://forms.office.com/e/veWpq22EaA
 
We will be closing the survey at midnight on 15/03/2024.

A GP referendum will take place between 7^th and 27^th March for GPs in England to share their view about the current GP landscape and next steps for action. This is for ALL individual GPs including GP registrars, regardless of contractual status, but you have to be a BMA member to take part. Join the BMA today – it is tax deductible and may protect your income in the long run.

The GPC England Executive Team is putting on a series of webinars, nationally and regionally.

Here are the dates and links for these:

Webinars: National: Wednesday 6th March 19.30 – 21.00 Microsoft Teams link South West: Wednesday 20th March 12.30 – 14.00  Microsoft Teams link

Please use the dedicated email inbox set up for the webinars and encourage attendees to post questions in advance to gpcereferendum@bma.org.uk.

Anyone from a practice can attend these webinars but only BMA member GPs can vote in the referendum.

The Chair has summarised the new GP contract for 2024/25, and the local supplementary services review, in the following slides. 
 

Avon LMC and One Care work independently and collaboratively for general practice. To support our membership, we have jointly created a reference document that outlines the functions of the organisations which can be found here.

Avon LMC encourages engagement with both organisations to ensure the highest level of support, representation and advocacy on behalf of general practice. 

Question:We are receiving an increasing number of queries from patients requesting that we continue hormones for gender dysphoria, initiated from a private clinic. How do we balance these expectations against prescribing in a safe way?

Answer: There are several issues surrounding this topic as follows:

1. What is best for this patient group?
2. What are the commissioned pathways?
3. What does various guidance say?
4. What does the GP contract say?

1. Without doubt, this patient group requires timely access to multi-disciplinary assessment and management within a Gender Identity Clinic and a GP alone cannot provide this. 
2. The commissioned pathways are woefully inadequate.  NHS England commissions Gender Identity Clinics with a wait time of > 3 years. What is not commissioned or funded is the maintenance of shared care of medication with general practice.  
3. Royal College of Psychiatry Guidance stresses the need for an MDT approach. NHS England advises on need for shared care without reference to contracting arrangements. The GMC  simultaneously states GPs should act within their competencies, whilst also allowing bridging hormone prescriptions. This is likely to represent permission, rather than a mandate.
4. The core GP contract is simple – that we must see patients who are ill or who believe they are ill. Anything that falls outside of this definition usually requires a separately commissioned pathway. The provision of maintenance medication for gender dysphoria is non-core, even if shared with an NHS Gender Identity Clinic. 

We are pleased to advice that we have started to develop an interim training offer to cover the break in practice staff training with funding from the BNSSG Training Hub.

The training will be available from March till May 2024.

We will share this information with you as soon as we have confirmed dates, these course will be free to book and are based on feedback provided by practices. If you haven’t yet completed this survey please do so and we will endeavour where possible to meet your requirements.

Please find the survey here.

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