The BMA’s GP Committee has been mandated to immediately renegotiate the funding GPs receive for administering the Covid vaccine by local medical committee leaders.
The BMA announced earlier this month that practices should prepare for the Covid vaccination programme to start from December – as first revealed by Pulse.
GP leaders at today’s England LMCs conference have voted in favour of a motion demanding that the BMA renegotiates funding attached to the service.
The motion, proposed by Cambridgeshire LMC, said ‘that conference deplores the pace and pressure put upon GPC England and its executive team in the negotiation of the Covid-19 vaccination programme enhanced service’.
Part iv – which passed with a 66% majority – added that LMC leaders should demand ‘an immediate renegotiation of funding and flexibility attached to the proposed enhanced service, now that timelines and possibilities are better understood’.
The motion was not included in the original conference agenda but replaced motion 20, which also referred to the Covid vaccine plans but had become out of date due to the pace of change in the situation.
It comes as GP leaders also voted in favour of putting the Primary Care Networks (PCN) DES to a ballot of the whole GP profession.
Motion in full
295 Agenda Committee to be proposed by Cambridgeshire LMC
That conference deplores the pace and pressure put upon GPC England and its Executive team in the negotiation of the COVID-19 vaccination programme enhanced service, and
(i) calls on GPC England to make it clear to patients and the public that faults in the COVID-19 vaccination programme lie with Government not with GPs PASSED
(ii) rejects the mandated 8am-8pm seven days a week proposals and demands that GPs are best placed to decide when and how to conduct their business to ensure maximal population coverage with minimal wastage PASSED
(iii) rejects the suggestion of single PCN designated sites and mandates the GPCE Executive to push for vaccine choice allowing general practice to deliver what it can at a practice level PASSED
(iv) demands an immediate renegotiation of funding and flexibility attached to the proposed enhanced service, now that timelines and possibilities are better understood PASSED
(v) believes that the GPC Executive team has failed in its duty to properly represent and negotiate on behalf of the profession and declares that it has no confidence in the Executive team of GPC England. Taken as reference – LOST
More to follow
READERS' COMMENTS [5]
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Good! I think this is a very sensible step.
be prepared to walk away
Irrelevant. The government has told the CCGs to start looking for anyone to do it. I saw their form to fill in two days ago. “Have you got a first aid qualification?” was one question. As an ex-GP aged 64 no one seems to be offering me the Covid Imm first, and if it IS only c 60% effective, well, I’m not in a rush to do the job.
Why would NHS England increase the offer, given that “PCN Groupings” have already signed up to do this (at what is probably a loss).
The only way that the vaccine is worth doing is if we are giving the less effective Oxford-AZ vaccine as it has “normal” storage requirements. If it’s the Pfizer one which, at least initially, looks to be more effective the logistics will make it a loss generating exercise.
I’ve got no aversion to pro-bono work – but it should be explicitly packaged as such.
I don’t think we have signed up for anything yet. The indications of interest and nomination if primary sites are not the DES