Exclusive Dr Farah Jameel has been elected to succeed Dr Richard Vautrey as the chair of the BMA’s GP England Committee.
Dr Jameel was the successful nominee following a vote at its England GPC meeting today.
Two candidates were nominated for the post – Dr Jameel and Dr Chandra Kanneganti.
Dr Jameel – the committee’s first female chair – is chair of Camden LMC and has served on Dr Vautrey’s executive team.
She became the youngest negotiator on the BMA GP Committee’s England executive team when she was appointed in 2017 at the age of 34 and was one of the four executive team members of the GPC who negotiated the landmark five-year contract.
She has been leading on workload issues for the GPC, including changes to the NHS standard contract to prevent secondary care from dumping workload on general practice.
As a member of the executive team, she supported work on IT, leading on the BMA’s successful campaign to delay the controversial ‘General Practice Data for Planning and Research’ scheme, labelled a ‘data grab’ by campaigners.
Dr Jameel has also supported the GPC’s clinical and prescribing policy group, where she turned her attention to issues such as how referral management systems are rejecting GP referrals following an outcry from GPs on social media.
She was previously a council member at Medical Women’s Federation, deputy chair of the BMA’s Equality and Inclusion Committee and a national executive member of the British International Doctor’s Association.
She is also former Chair of the South Thames Regional Junior Doctors Committee in 2012 and was a member of the British Medical Association’s UK Junior Doctors Committee between 2010 to 2014. She has been involved in medical politics since 2009.
Commenting on her election, Dr Jameel said a priority would be to ‘reset’ the BMA GP Committee’s relationship with the Government.
Tweeting before the election, Dr Jameel said today ‘is momentous for so many reasons’.
Dr Kanneganti has been the GPC’s policy lead on NHS England and is a Conservative councillor and Lord Mayor in Stoke-on-Trent, as well as chair of the British International Doctors Association (BIDA).
It comes after outgoing chair Dr Vautrey this month announced he was standing down from the role he had held for four years.
Meanwhile, Pulse revealed earlier this week that the BMA had told GP Committee members they must join the BMA immediately to remain part of the committee and vote in the elections.
READERS' COMMENTS [8]
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Congratulations Farah.
Many congratulations Farah !
Congratulation
Most extraordinary time in recent history of general practice. It appears that we need an extraordinary twist of fate .
As I wrote before , the question is ‘are we making history or history ‘’making ‘’ us instead ?’
Good luck , my lady .
I think this is good.
She is distant from the establishment.
I think she will fight for General Practice as a trade union, instead of trying to save the NHS sacred cow.
Well done.
Congratulation for winning the election and becoming the GPC Chair. I hope you would fight for all GPs ( Various contract holders GMS,APMS, sessional Locums etc.) during this really difficult times.
Can we please have the result of the recent ballot as was promised? Or is that too hot politically for you now you have been freshly elected?
Congratulations farah