Londonwide LMCs is committed to changing the narrative from individual practices are to blame for patients struggling to get appointments to the more accurate reasoning that pressures on general practice are due to system-wide problems.
Last year we began piloting General Practice Alert State (GPAS) in North East London before rolling it out across London. Now any practice who wants to get involved can sign-up.
Your data safely in the hands of your independent representatives
We know there are commissioner-led initiatives to gather similar data, but there are two main reasons why practices may prefer to let their LMCs perform this role. Firstly, we have no conflict of interest in playing down any difficulties practices are facing, we want to put out a realistic picture that is backed-up by robust data. Secondly, there is a risk that if a commissioner directly holds your data, this could be used as part of the assessment of your practice both by the primary care commissioning teams and CQC. You can read more about this and the overall value of GPAS in this blog.
Closing the evidence gap with secondary care
This digital reporting system requires less than five minutes of practice time per week and the report provides a weekly rating of the pressures similar to the Operational Pressures Escalation Levels (OPEL) system used by hospital trusts and ambulance services. We can then use this data to show where the pressures are in comparison to the wider system.
Thank you to all the practices currently providing their data on a weekly basis.
The data will be coming to Londonwide LMCs, your trusted partner and the voice of general practice across London, and we will be sharing back to the system the information completely anonymously on a borough level.
This means that we are completely in control of the information, but for general practice to remain in control we need you!
Easy sign-up
Sign up now by sending the details of two named contacts for your practice to Ann Ayamah, project manager at ann.ayamah@lmc.org.uk or via this form.
One of the contacts should then complete the weekly return of six questions for the practice. This information will give Londonwide LMCs high quality data to evidence the pressures on general practice across the Capital in real time.
Don’t just take our word for it
Joining the session is Sue Byrne, Practice Manager at the Granville Medical Centre in Redbridge. Sue, openly admits that she was sceptical about the time it would take to fill out the form on a weekly basis and how effective this would be as leverage for general practice within the wider system. However after hearing from Dr Elliott Singer (Project Director for GPAS and Medical Director at Londonwide LMCs), Sue was onboard:
“When Elliott attended our Practice Manager Forum, I wasn’t convinced that this would be as easy as he was portraying. However, I am happy to report that it is a 5-minute, at most, a week job and you get a report back at the end of the week detailing how the borough is doing. Aside from this we are also using this to inform our staffing levels at the practice. It is without doubt, beneficial and exactly as it is described.” – Sue Byrne, Practice Manager.
GPAS is being rolled out across the country and ultimately LMCs and the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee will have access to a national dashboard which we will all be contributing to