Four months after GPs in England voted in favour of taking collective action over contractual terms and funding,1 local medical committee (LMC) representatives gathered for their annual conference on 22 November to share experiences and discuss next steps.
Limiting contact
In Cambridgeshire, some practices have implemented safe working limits, with GPs having a maximum of 25 patient contacts a day. LMC committee member Ben Curtis said, “For me, 25 appointments a day has brought the joy back into GP consulting. I would encourage all of you who haven’t adopted it to do so. Let’s keep the momentum.”
PSA monitoring
Earlier this year, Beds and Herts LMC ran a collective action workshop, looking at unfunded work that GPs had been doing and could stop. Hertfordshire GP Violaine Carpenter said, “We decided to target the monitoring of prostate specific antigen (PSA) by GPs on behalf of oncologists and urologists in men with prostate cancer. In our area this work is unfunded and carries a huge medicolegal risk given the lack of a decent recall system in the GP IT platforms.”
ADHD, bariatric surgery, and gender dysphoria
In Dorset, GP and LMC chair Simon Wright said practices had “served notice almost immediately on new ADHD, bariatric surgery, and gender dysphoria follow up requests that come from private providers.” This means GPs are no longer agreeing …
