Avon LMCs Newsletter on 13-03-24

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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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I don’t know about you, but I am feeling a bit weary these days, not helped by the rainy weather. I realise it’s because I’ve not had a proper holiday since October, so I’m looking forward to a few days off over Easter to recharge my batteries. 

Practice finances have been a huge concern in these last few weeks, as some practice face the dual hit of an appalling GP contract uplift in the face of rising expenses, combined with a loss of funding from the supplementary basket of services. 

As an LMC, we would encourage you to examine your unfunded workload (including those activities outside the scope of the supplementary basket should you choose to continue providing this) and start taking steps to stop this work. There is no lifeline being thrown at general practice, so we need to start doing only what we are funded for, and no more. 

Shaba Nabi
Chair Avon LMC

The GP Resilience Survey has received a good response rate so far of approximately 60%, giving us a good understanding of the position of those practices.

We urge practices yet to complete the survey to do so before the deadline of midnight on Friday 15^th March 2024 and let the voice of your Practice be heard.

Please use the link to show how the Supplementary Services review has affected you. https://forms.office.com/e/veWpq22EaA

GPC England is putting on a series of webinars to share details about the new contract so you are in a position to vote in the GP Referendum, which is open from 7^th to 27^th March. You need to be a BMA member to vote and we would encourage you to join or update your details to have your voice heard. Voting emails are being sent out in batches so as long as you ensure the BMA has your correct details, you will be sent a voting link. 

There will be only one question asked within this referendum as follows:
 
Do you accept the 2024/25 GMS Contract for General Practice from Government and NHS England?

To assist you with answering this question, you can attend ANY one of the following webinars (and not just the SW regional one) delivered by the GPC England Executive Team.

Avon LMC recently had a productive meeting with the Local Medical Examiner and their office is doing all it can to make the process as smooth as possible for GPs. 
 
The original go-live date of 1^st April has been pushed back and we have been informed that a new date will be announced nationwide, with at least a month’s notice. 
 
In the meantime, you can familiarise yourselves with the process by listening to this podcast (see the attached bellow) by Lee Salkeld, Avon LMC Board Director, who has been piloting the new process at his practice. 
 
The Medical Examiner’s office is also visiting every practice to introduce the process and we hope to have a suite of resources available on Remedy for you to refer to.

Understanding Changes to Death Certification: A Guide for General Practice | RSS.com

DBS applications can now be processed by BACS and Pay-by-Link. Please contact info@almc.co.uk should you require the information or link to progress applications.

Question:

We are seeing an increasing volume of complex, specialist patients presenting to general practice, which was not the case a few years back. These issues are currently managed differently across BNSSG and I wonder if there is any work being done to support this?

Answer: 

This area is very much in the forefront of the LMC workplan and we will be discussing the interface at our LMC Committee meeting next week

We are told there is no money in the system to fund our current workload, so it is the role of the LMC to help practices reach a consensus position – do we continue unfunded, non-contractual work or do we stop doing it? Once we have a steer from the membership on some of these questions, we will be in a place to publish LMC position statements and template letters which practices can use. 

Please see the attachment here.

Please see below the most recent One Care bulletins:

Thursday 7 March: General practice bulletin (mailchi.mp)
 
Tuesday 12 March: General practice bulletin (mailchi.mp)

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