England Conference of LMCs 2024

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The Conference is on 22 November, with our LMCs speaking about IT, advice and guidance and integrated neighbourhood teams.

The event is held at Friends House, near Euston, the full agenda is here and a live stream will be added to this page close to the start of the day’s proceedings.

Motions being proposed by LMCs from the Londonwide LMCs’ area are listed below.

Motion 9, written by the Agenda Committee and to be proposed by City and Hackney LMC

That conference condemns the chronic underfunding of GP IT provision which is having a shameful impact on practices and:

  1. Notes that there has been no uplift in GP IT capital funding, which includes the funding for SMS messaging and IT support, in over five years.
  2. Recognises that limiting text message funding, will transfer financial pressure onto practices, many of whom are already under immense strain.
  3. Requires NHSE to explain how they can achieve the objectives outlined in ‘modern general practice model’ without adequately investing in general practice IT.
  4. Requests that GPCE work with NHSE clinical digital leads in developing the business case to convince the DHSC to fully fund all digital tools that enable safe secure direct
    communication with patients.
  5. insists that core GP IT funding be properly prioritised within NHS budgets to support necessary workforce expansion.

Motion 11, written by the Agenda Committee and to be proposed by Tower Hamlets

That conference recognises that: Advice and Guidance and Advice and Referral schemes have reduced secondary care workload and outpatient waiting lists, whilst leading to an unsustainable transfer of workload to general practice and:

  1. Insists that practices heed GPCE advice and avoid using Advice and Guidance, insisting instead on face-to-face outpatient appointments, unless A&G is in the best interests of
    patients.
  2. Calls for GPCE to demand an obligation for all trusts to provide separate advice and separate direct referral options per specialty within ERS to replace existing Advice & Refer
    options so the referring clinician can choose whichever is most appropriate.
  3. Calls for GPCE to negotiate a standard time frame across England within which advice responses should be received by the referring clinician should advice be sought.
  4. Calls for GPCE to negotiate a standard structure and quality of response to be adhered to including consideration of whether the components of the advice can be fulfilled within
    contractual services provided by general practice.
  5. Recommends that the system wide financial savings generated by these schemes are shared with general practice, to remunerate workload transfer, rather than savings just be absorbed by hospital trusts.

Motion 20, written by the Agenda Committee and to be proposed by Tower Hamlets

That conference believes that Integrated Neighbourhood Teams are a laudable concept and:

  1. Advises NHSE to keep general practice at the centre of these teams
  2. Recommends that community services including health visitors, midwives and district nurses are based around GP practices, rather than around another organisational
    structure
  3. Advises that community service managers recognise the value of this collaborative work and provide protected time for their staff to attend MDT meetings at GP practices, which
    will improve outcomes for vulnerable patients
  4. Calls for community nursing staff and associated resource to be moved into general
    practice in order to undertake the work required by general practice.