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LMCs conference to debate ‘wholesale’ new GMS contract

GP representatives from across England will vote on whether the BMA should completely renegotiate the GP contract for the first time since 2004.

The motion, if approved at the England LMCs conference taking place later this month, would mandate the GP Committee ‘to negotiate a wholesale new GMS contract’.

As part of the same motion, LMCs will also vote on whether NHS England should issue multi-year contracts ‘to ensure funding stability over the medium-term to support practices to invest and develop’.

According to the proposal, the process of annually negotiated contract adjustments may be ‘a method of negotiation which is failing to address the crisis in general practice’.

The news comes as NHS England is already consulting GPs on amendments that it said ‘could herald the most substantial changes to the GP contract since 2004’ – including changes to the partnership model, a wideranging overhaul of QOF as well as changes to practice funding calculations aimed at enabling ‘full adoption’ of ‘digital’ primary care models.

The Government has also said it will pursue ‘contract reform, through a multi-year agreement from 2019/20’.

Delegates at the LMCs conference will further re-visit the topic of patients paying for GP services, via a motion proposing that ‘conference recognises the dire state of general practice and demands a co-payment model’.

This follows a decision taken at the 2017 UK LMCs conference to ‘produce a discussion paper outlining alternative funding options for general practice, including co-payments’.

The BMA paper looked at international models of general practice, concluding that ‘the NHS is the favoured system of providing healthcare to all in the UK’ and that the Government therefore had to sufficiently fund the current model.

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The conference of England LMCs takes place in London on Friday 23 November.

LMC representatives will also debate whether to cap workload by introducing a limit of 1,500 patients per full-time GP, and reducing core hours of general practice.

Other motions focus on:

Motions in full

AGENDA COMMITTEE TO BE PROPOSED BY OXFORDSHIRE: That conference believes core funding for general practice has been eroded to the point that it is now unsustainable and unsafe, and

(i) that annually negotiated adjustments to the GMS contract is a method of negotiation which is failing to address the crisis in general practice

(ii) mandates GPC England to negotiate a recurrent global sum uplift at least over and above inflation

(iii) calls on NHS England to issue multi-year contracts to general practice to ensure funding stability over the medium-term to support practices to invest and develop

(iv) proposes that payments for enhanced services are index linked (v) mandates GPC England to negotiate a wholesale new GMS contract

KENT:  That conference recognises the dire state of general practice and demands a co-payment model.

Source: BMA