Dear colleagues,
Welcome to this update from Merton LMC. We are aiming to provide regular (bi-monthly) newsletters to keep you updated on the work that Merton LMC is doing to support you.
Merton LMC members
- Dr Marek Jarzembowski (Sessional) Chair
- Dr Paul Alford, (Principal) – Vice Chair
- Dr Caroline Chill (Sessional)
- Dr Elizabeth Higham (Principal)
- Dr Andrew Otley (Principal)
- Dr Elisabeth Wood (Salaried)
- Practice Manager Representative roles shared by Dawn De Fontaine, Carly Pearcey and Barbara Young.
The LMC is supported by the following team at Londonwide LMCs:
- Medical Director, Dr Asiya Yunus, [email protected]
- Assistant Director of Primary Care, Nicola Rice, [email protected]
- Committee Liaison Executive, David Moore, [email protected]
LMC Elections
Londonwide Local Medical Committees elections 2023
Being part of the Londonwide LMCs family means that new and existing LMC members are supported to build expertise and experience, giving a steady path to taking on clinical leadership responsibilities such as leading local representation within your own borough and integrated care board (ICB) area, working with your area’s system, ICB, provider alliances, federations and primary care networks to help protect GP services and stabilise frontline general practice.
With strong support from the expert teams at Londonwide LMCs, your LMC is tracking contractual funding streams and challenging where they are not reaching practices, working on local enhanced service changes, protecting and maintaining funding for IT such as Accurx, and tackling the interface between general practice and hospital trusts.
Nominations are open from 24 April to 26 May, any GP on the National Performers List who does the majority of their sessions in one of the boroughs covered by Londonwide LMCs can stand in that Borough. Online lunchtime networking events on 10 and 11 May offer an opportunity to learn more about LMC membership. Click here for more details.
General Practice Alert System (GPAS)
Real time information on GP pressure
GPAS has been developed to monitor the ability of general practice to cope with current demands. It will enable the LMC to advise the ICS/ICB within an area that general practice as a whole, rather than at an individual practice level, is either starting to struggle to provide appropriate levels of care or is no longer able to maintain full GP services. It can be compared to the OPEL (Operational Pressures Escalation Levels) system used by Ambulance and Hospital Trusts. Importantly this data remains entirely anonymous, and we will report by locality and pan-ICS only.
GPAS will become increasingly difficult to ignore as it gets rolled out across the country and ultimately LMCs and GPC will have access to a national dashboard which we will all be contributing to. We need practices to provide us with a named person and deputy to send the emails to and for practices to complete a weekly form that consists of six simple questions. The form will take a few minutes to complete, and think of the benefits being able to show this to the wider system.
If you want to learn more, Dr Elliott Singer, Project Director for GPAS and Medical Director at Londonwide LMCs will be leading the following GPAS sessions: Wednesday 28 June 12-1pm and Wednesday 26 July 12:30-1:30pm. Please email [email protected] and for further information contact [email protected].
Best wishes,
Dr Marek Jarzembowski
Chair
Merton LMC