LMCs question future of GP dispute over contract in light of apparent agreement

Exclusive LMC leaders have told Pulse they are unsure about next steps in the dispute with Government over 1 October contract changes, after new evidence from negotiations suggested these were ‘agreed’.

LMC officers told Pulse they are now ‘not sure’ the profession will be able to take industrial action, after Pulse revealed Government evidence that BMA England’s GP committee’s executive team was told in writing that changes to online access would go ahead regardless of specific software safeguards; and that mitigations would be up to practices.

In response to the concerns, the BMA told Pulse there were no legal impediments to the dispute, and experts in the field have largely backed this.

GPCE England are in formal dispute since 1 October over contract changes that mean they have to keep online consultation tools open throughout core hours, with the committee’s leaders having maintained throughout that the Government had promised to implement safeguards before changes came into force.

However, in light of the new evidence one LMC officer told Pulse: ‘I’m not even sure we can really take industrial action as these changes were all negotiated, it now turns out.

‘The profession is in a total mess, and there isn’t the leadership in the GPCE executive at the moment to take us through this as they don’t have enough confidence from committee members or LMC.’

Another LMC officer said: ‘Is the dispute with the Government even valid? As it appears to be based on the fact that the Government lied when it is starting to become apparent that they have implemented the contract as agreed by the committee.’

An LMC director said they thought the profession ‘needs to take a stand’ but that the current dispute doesn’t appear to be based on ‘the right reason’. They said: ‘Do GPs have the energy to go into industrial action over a contract our leaders agreed, promoted, and signed up to?

‘I do think we need to take a stand, but this isn’t the right reason, and it feels like we are going into industrial action to cover up the strategic failures of the GPC executive.’

Another GP leader told Pulse: ‘If the GPC executive has agreed to something, then how can we go in dispute over it? It doesn’t make any sense.’

Experts have told Pulse that GPs might still be able to take action over the changes as long as they can establish that there is a dispute over contractual terms.

Daniel Wilde, a partner specialising in employment law at Harding Evans solicitors, said: ‘Generally, a trade union can secure immunity from legal action if industrial action is properly convened and voted in favour of, where there is a “trade dispute” between an employer and its employees for example over terms and conditions.

‘It is for the union to demonstrate that there is an ongoing dispute over terms and conditions including pay.’

However, he added it would be ‘unusual’ for a union to do this where terms had indeed been agreed.

‘It would be extremely unusual for a union to ballot where there is no underlying disagreement. Possibly at that stage, legal action could be taken but even if something is 90% agreed, there is still potentially a dispute that would enable the union to establish a trade dispute.’

Professor Gregor Gall, an industrial relations professor at the University of Glasgow, told Pulse: ‘These are disputes of commercial contracts not disputes about conditions of employment – ironically called trade disputes – because GPs are essentially self-employed.

‘They can still take forms of industrial action by withdrawing their labour in order to put pressure on the Government but they do not need to go through the same hoops of statutory balloting – which gives legal protection to the action – because they are not in an employee-employer relationship.’

A BMA spokesperson said that establishing a dispute itself is not subject to any legislation, as it is purely to raise one or more disagreements.

But they added that if the union was to direct members to take any action that amounted to contract breach, this is subject to stringent legislative rules around balloting.

It comes as Pulse exclusively revealed last week that a large number of GPCE members feel they have been ‘misled’ by the executive team of the committee over what was agreed as part of the contract.

Posting about the issue on Facebook on Friday evening, GPCE chair Dr Katie Bramall said that the email referenced by DHSC had been followed by a meeting which resulted in an agreement that ‘both sides would continue to work together over the coming months in good faith’.

She wrote: ‘The final statement around the contract was agreed upon earlier in February. That remained the final wording. DHSC chose to release a subsequent informal email from the end of February, which we then followed up with a formal meeting almost immediately.

‘In that meeting, it was basically understood that you cannot enforce a single specific software solution, when you have multiple online consult providers who are private companies.

‘But we knew this anyway – because we actually work in general practice, and have first hand experience of online consult tools. Hence our concerns that there was going to need to be a bespoke approach for each provider to make mitigations.

‘The outcome was to stick with the agreed consensus statement: that both sides would continue to work together over the coming months in good faith to embed what mitigations we could – which we laid out in another formal letter which is publicly available on the BMA GPCE campaign page online.

‘This was always our understanding, and their clear position was that they would continue to work with us.’

Pulse revealed last week that the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England have cancelled all meetings with the GPC amid the dispute.