Avon LMCs Newsletter on 22-07-26

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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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I am excited that we are able announce the appointment of two new Avon LMC Board Directors following our recent elections.

Together with our current South Gloucestershire Board Director, Dr Nafeesa Arshad, we have a strong Board that is well placed to provide effective leadership and governance for Avon LMC. We will meet for the first time in September to establish our respective Board roles and responsibilities, and I am confident that we share a common commitment to supporting and strengthening general practice across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

Our role as the Board is to ensure the effective governance and smooth running of Avon LMC. Most importantly, we remain accountable to the grassroots GPs we represent. Their priorities, challenges and aspirations will continue to shape the work of the Main Committee, with the Board providing the oversight and decision-making required to deliver on those expectations.

Scroll to the bottom to find this week’s dad joke.

Lee Salkeld
Chair: Avon LMC

The elections for the North Somerset and Bristol Board Director roles have now concluded, and we are delighted to announce the appointment of two new Board Directors, who will take up their roles in September.
 
Dr Mike Jenkins, GP Partner at Mendip Vale Medical Group, has been elected as the North Somerset Board Director. Mike rejoins the LMC Board, bringing with him a wealth of previous Board-level experience.
 
Dr Chris Palmer, GP Partner at Nightingale Valley Practice, has been elected as the Bristol Board Director. Chris joins the Board following his previous experience representing his South Gloucestershire PCN on the LMC Committee.
 
We would like to thank all candidates who stood for election. We are particularly grateful for the commitment and willingness of those who were unsuccessful, whose engagement and contribution are invaluable to the ongoing work of the LMC. 

GPC England has announced that July’s collective action will focus on shared care. To ensure collective action remains relevant to practices in BNSSG, the potential areas of shared care to focus on were discussed at the most recent LMC committee meeting. In the coming weeks, practices will be receiving a short survey on their preferences for the next phase of collective action. Each practice need only complete this survey once.

This information about conducting a practice wound care audit has been disseminated to practice nurses and will now commence on 27 July. LMC Wound Care Audit Resources can be found here 
On the page, you’ll find the:

• LMC Wound Care Audit Protocol Guide
• LMC Wound Care Audit Search Guide
• LMC Wound Care Audit Resources (the EMIS search that practices will need to upload)
• A video guide explaining how to set up the protocol and how to use it 

Question: NHSE list cleansing exercise is causing significant financial pressure on some practices and they are unclear what trigger PCSE are using to select the patients to be deducted.  It would be helpful if that could be found out and shared please.
 
Answer:
 
Thank you for your query about the NHSE list cleansing exercise. This is causing major consternation, not just locally, but nationally too. Some practices across the country have reported losing over 100 patients per week, with profound implications for their baseline funds. 
 
NHS England has shared a letter explaining the purpose of the patient list validation programme which can be found here.
 
GPC England has discussed this with NHS England and the government, and the BMA media team is looking for practices willing to speak publicly about this issue. Please contact info@almc.co.uk if you would like to be put in touch with the BMA media team.
 
In the meantime, this is an excellent resource from Londonwide LMCs which can be found here. 


 

Many of you contacted Avon LMC with concerns about the proposed changes and as a result, the ICB has submitted the following statement regarding the proposed change to the EFR submission process:
 
 ‘Following valuable feedback from GP practices and the LMC, the ICB has reviewed the proposed changes to the Exceptional Funding Request (EFR) submission process. While the existing EFR database still needs to be replaced, GP practices will not be required to submit EFR applications via Blueteq at this time. The current submission process remains unchanged, and no action is needed regarding Blueteq accounts.’.

NHS England have initiated a consultation process and published a high-level summary on proposed Multi-Neighbourhood Provider and Single Neighbourhood Provider contracting models and are seeking views on this.
 
Avon LMC urges all practices and PCNs to engage with this consultation which can be found here.

As a result of changes in the Employment Rights Act 2025 which may impact GPs as employers, LLR LMC have very kindly shared the recording of their online webinar to go through the changes with GP practices.

• 2026-04-23 Employment Law Update (Session 1)
  • New legislation for 2025: updates and trends in employment law, including changes to flexible working, holiday pay, and protection from harassment
  • The Employment Rights Bill update: a critical and current topic covering the impact on employers, including changes to “fire and rehire”
  • Compliance considerations from a GMS and PCN perspective
• 2026-04-30 Employment Law Update (Session 2)
  • Mental health in the workplace: supporting employee mental and emotional health, managing burnout, and creating an open culture
  • Supporting neurodiversity: understanding neurodivergent staff, making reasonable adjustments, and building an inclusive environment
  • Menopause at work: legal responsibilities of employers and guidance on creating menopause-friendly workplaces
  • Managing sickness absence, including long-term sickness

Following queries from practices about children whose parents decline the MMRV vaccine but request MMR as an alternative, we sought clarification from the SW screening & immunisation team.
 
The national recommendation remains that MMRV is the routine vaccine offered to eligible children. Where parents decline MMRV, healthcare professionals should first explore the reasons for refusal and provide appropriate reassurance, particularly where a child is already immune to chickenpox through previous infection or private varicella vaccination.
 
However, in the small number of cases where parents continue to decline MMRV despite advice and reassurance, and there are concerns that the child may remain unprotected against infections such as measles, clinicians may use their clinical discretion to offer MMR vaccine under a Patient Specific Direction (PSD) and ImmForm stock can be used.
 
This approach should be considered a pragmatic last resort, rather than an alternative choice within the routine immunisation programme and should not be actively promoted. The aim is to ensure children are protected against vaccine-preventable diseases when MMRV is not accepted. If you have any questions, please get in touch with the SW screening & immunisation team. 

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On Thursday 9^th July, the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee for England (GPCE) elected Dr David Wrigley, Dr Shan Hussain and Dr Manu Agrawal as the new officers of GPCE under the leadership of recently announced GPs committee chair Dr Clare Bannon.
 
Avon LMC would like to congratulate the team and is hoping for success in future negotiations.
 
Full details can be found here.

The BMA Sessional GP Committee is seeking your views and details of your experiences of working as a sessional (salaried or locum) GP. This information will be used to inform the committee’s workplan and priorities for the coming year, and to provide evidence to help lobby government and other key stakeholders. The survey asks about your workload and earnings, and about the wider employment climate for sessional GPs. 
 
You can complete the survey here.

Following the UK LMC Conference held in Belfast in May, the BMA has published the full conference news including detail on the outcome of motions debated and election results.

 Conference news document can be found here



 

This can be found here,

 

 Thursday 16 July General practice bulletin

Tuesday 21 July General practice bulletin

Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field

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– LATEST TRAINING AND EVENTS –

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