The BMA’s England GP committee has voted not to accept a contract agreement with NHS England and condemned the recently-published draft service specifications outlining what is expected of Primary Care Networks (PCNs)1 over the next four years.
Members of the committee, who met in London on Thursday 16 January, were presented with a package of changes but voted against accepting them. The GPC’s executive team will now return to negotiations with NHS England. Details of the package remain confidential.
A separate motion condemned the draft service specifications, put forward by NHS England and NHS Improvement in December, and called for a Special Conference of English LMCs3 to allow GP reps from across the country to debate and consider the outcome of contract negotiations.
This week's GPC meeting on Thursday 16th January will be critical for General Practice. Today (13th Jan), an urgent letter will go out requesting feedback from our LMC members. Please click on the link below to voice your concerns:-
https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/primary-care-networks-service-specifications/
The BMA has produced a handy summary of the current proposals from NHSE for reference, on the PDF below, in which it is possible to more readily spot the areas of major concern:-
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EMgxmcH5m6d6TfR2YYfKQaEy1UPCYSjW
For example:
- Each care home covered by a PCN must receive fortnightly visits from a GP and have a consistent, multidisciplinary team assigned to support its residents with weekly visits (page 17 of the draft specs).
It is still possible to book to join a large number of PCN leaders at our second PCN Conference on Saturday 8th February, at the ICC Birmingham. This will be an important opportunity to learn about what is happening in networks around England, share good examples and explore solutions to problems. Please see attached the outline programme which is also available on our PCN Support web pages:
Following longstanding concerns about the failure of many areas to make proper payment to cover the costs to practices for work covered by collaborative arrangements, at the LMC England Conference, the BMA launched an application for judicial review in Northamptonshire challenging the failure to make any financial provision for child safeguarding services provided by GPs. LMC England have now been informed that our application for judicial review has been granted permission by the Administrative Court, which will be listed in the next few months.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have published draft PCN service specifications and an accompanying survey (link below) asking for feedback. GPC England will engage with NHSEI in negotiations on the service specifications in the coming weeks and this will be influenced by the responses to the consultation. We would therefore ask LMCs to circulate the link to the survey to local practices and clinical directors and to encourage them to make their views known as soon as possible through a response.
https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/primary-care-networks-service-specifications/
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