JOIN US AT OUR GENERAL MEETING – TUESDAY 20THFEBRUARY at 06:30PM
Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86879521592
Time: Feb 20, 2024 06:30 PM London
Message from the event representatives:
From April 1st this year ALL NW London GP practices are being forced by NW London health bosses to adopt a new untested system for residents requestion same day access to their GP.
This new system will fundamentally change the way that we relate to our GP practice.
ALL practices are being ‘cohorted’ into Same Day Hubs which, to save money, are being encouraged to group themselves into ‘a larger footprint [than even the PCN] which may well bring greater economies of scale’.
WHAT IS THE PLAN?
You feel you need an emergency same day appointment. You phone your practice. All practices will be linked to a centrally controlled phone system. You hit 1 if you want to be seen on the day. You will be transferred to a Same Day Hub where a ‘Care Coordinator’ – who will not be a doctor – who may triage you on to someone else at the Hub who will also not be a doctor who will eventually decide how to deal with your request. Actually, the papers are totally unclear as to who or what the Care Coordinator might be!
Each Hub with have one ‘senior supervising GP’…
Only patients with ‘complex long-term needs’ will be looked after by the GP practice with which which you are registered.
JOIN US AT OUR GENERAL MEETING
Where we will be looking more closely at these plans and looking more closely at the concerns raised by GPs themselves (see below).
IF YOU LIVE ANYWHERE IN NW LONDON, PLEASE DO FEEL FREE TO JOIN US AT THIS MEETING.
TUESDAY 20THFEBRUARY 6.30-8.00PM
Via zoom (see link at end of email)
SPEAKER: DR PAMELA MARTIN
Pamela Martin worked as a partner in a South London inner city practice for 30 years. She was a trainer for 10 years, and previously an undergraduate teacher. She became involved in Mental Health Commissioning, and the provision of services for alcohol harm reduction. She was on Lewisham Local Medical Committee for 25 years and was the South east London regional representative on the BMA General Practitioners’ Committee from 2017-2020. She left clinical practice in 2017 and since then has facilitated young GP practitioner peer support groups, and is a mentor in the RCGP Mentoring Scheme.
These proposals are causing real consternation amongst many doctors across England who fear that this is ‘levelling down general practice’. Dr Helen Salisbury (Oxford GP and academic) calls this a ‘spectacularly bad idea’ in the British Medical Journal (13 Feb 2024 – see https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj.q368 ). And when Pulse, the national GP journal, described this plan it became their most widely read article ever.
The Londonwide Local Medical Committee, the professional voice of London general practice, has pointed out that this proposed change potentially destroys the key relationship between doctor and patient. It also points out that there are potentially serious threats to patient safety: the person you speak to will NOT be trained in diagnostics – that’s a doctor’s job. And it also makes clear that medical conditions for many patients are not easily divided between ‘long term complex’ and other conditions. A patient may present with one problem but a GP may well analyse an underlying or even a different serious problem based on their experience – something which a care coordinator will lack.
The LMC has summarised its serious concerns as follows:
We are deeply concerned that this plan is a step which could lead to replacing fully trained GPs with cheaper and less well-trained staff. It is difficult to imagine a GP wanting to stay in NW London when their roles have been levelled down so fundamentally.
Needless to say NO patients had ANY say in the production of this damaging plan. Nor did most GPs. In fact, patients, residents and NHS campaigners only know about this plan because a concerned GP leaked it!
And it is being rushed through. The health bosses themselves acknowledge ‘that the 13 week timeframe to effectively support 35 PCNs through the initial design process is short and that it is not an optimal time of year for practices to engage in the change process’.
However, they are ramming it through.
This has all been designed by one of the four big accounting multinationals, KPMG. They were paid to design it and they will also be paid to train GPs in how to use the service. We have not been told how much they’ve been paid. This may remind us of the enormous amount of money made by another multinational which was paid for Shaping A Healthier Future which tried to close Ealing and Charing Cross hospitals.
JOIN US AT OUR GENERAL MEETING – TUESDAY 20THFEBRUARY
MERRIL HAMMER is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: HAFSON general meeting
Time: Feb 20, 2024 06:30 PM London
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