The newly-elected chair of BMA England’s GP Committee has said she wants to ‘reset’ its relationship with the Government, in her first comment following the win.
Dr Jameel, who became the first female to be elected in the post today, said the change in leadership was an ‘opportunity’ that needed to be recognised but admitted ‘difficulties’ lie ahead.
Her comments come as the BMA is currently in a dispute with the Government in England over the recently announced GP ‘access plan’, which aims to boost the number of face-to-face appointment offered by practices to patients this winter.
Dr Jameel said: ‘I am delighted and honoured to have been elected to represent GPs at a time of enormous challenge to the profession and I’d like to thank the former chair, Dr Richard Vautrey for his dedication and commitment to this committee and all that he has achieved.
‘I don’t underestimate the difficulties that lay ahead but we must recognise this as an opportunity to reset our relationship with Government and begin to rebuild general practice.’
She added: ‘I look to use the next three years to work closely with fellow general practice leaders and grassroots GPs to design and deliver a stable and sustainable general practice, fit to serve generations of patients to come.’
Dr Jameel staved off competition from one other GPC member in the election, in which GPC England members were eligible to vote. Dr Chandra Kanneganti took to Twitter to congratulate his ‘dear friend’ on her success.
Dr Jameel, who was already a member of the GPC’s executive team, is chair of Camden LMC.
Among other things, 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.
The BMA has advised GP practices to immediately start offering consultations of 15 minutes or more; and apply to close their patient list, as part of the fightback against the Government’s new GP access plan.
Dr Richard Vautrey announced his intention to resign as GPC chair last month, after four years in the role.
READERS' COMMENTS [6]
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1st step – get them to stop the daily abuse of general practice via the media.
2nd renegotiate the unlimited workload contract which allows unlimited demand and no increase in funding for this work which is increasing year or year.
3rd Reset a basic practice allowance to incentivise the partnership model as a salaried service will fail, as it will need many more GPs to replace each retiring partner – more than current recruitment will ever provide.
lastly stop the creeping privatisation of the NHS via APMS contracts, and larger organisations ready to be cherry picked by the US markets once any transatlantic deal is signed.
Spot on NK.
good luck with that – they are so used to crapping on us they don’t even realise they are doing it !
You missed one NK – funding back into core instead of 38956795 funding streams of low value.
Best wishes
Michelle
Brilliant news that GPC has elected its 1st woman to lead a much needed renaissance of General Practice – well done Dr Jameel. You have a difficult time ahead of you dealing with a corrupt, dishonest, arrogant Tory government who have a large parliamentary majority and think they can do as they please. Historically the Torys have demonstrated an institutional dislike of General Practice and the other Cinderella medical specialties like mental and public health. Lets hope you can turn the tables and persuade Savid Javid to see the realities of the mess his party has made of General Practice that has led over the years to the current crisis. Good luck,
Ditch PCN DES. It is an open book to dump workload on us from secondary carte and move public health and community wellbeing onto primary care via PCNs. It’s not our job. Leave PHE, central govt legislation to run health prevention/promotion and local government to create health communities and fund them all. You can’t pass this onto primary care. It’s not our job, we can’t do it. It’s a mass overmedicalisation of society which is already over medicalised. FFS