Welcome West Pennine LMC

Dr Amir Hannan Chair	Dr Alan Dow Secretary	Dr Andrew Vance Vice Chair

The NHS is facing a huge crisis with cuts in public sector funding affecting healthcare and social care whilst we have an aging population with multiple co-morbidities and staff who are becoming increasingly disillusioned with increased bureaucracy and wasted opportunities. 90% of all contacts in the NHS are in General Practice. General Practice is unique because it has a registered population and lies at the heart of every local community. All GP practices have an electronic health record which supports delivery of care and helps to maintain quality and safety. Information and technology has a vital role to play as more and more of the general population now has access to the internet and use smartphones too. Increasingly we are seeing General Practices partner with other local care organisations including the voluntary sector and others in order to deliver services that better meet the needs of the population. At the same time, General Practice can help to activate patients and the public as well as staff to have a feeling of greater control of their healthcare needs, reduce the burden on the public sector and help to improve outcomes. When General Practice succeeds, the NHS will succeed.

BMA - British Medical Association

Safe working in general practice in England guidance

Limit daily patient consultations

Limit daily patient consultations per clinician to the UEMO recommended safe maximum of 25.

Divert patients to local urgent care settings once daily maximum capacity has been reached. We strongly advise consultations are offered face-to-face. This is better for patients and clinicians – read our patients first document available here.

Learn more about what impact this will have.

Serve notice on voluntary services

Serve notice on any voluntary services currently undertaken that plug local commissioning gaps and stop supporting the system at the expense of your business and staff.

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Withdraw permission for data sharing agreements

Withdraw permission for data sharing agreements that exclusively use data for secondary purposes (i.e. not direct care). Read our guidance on GP data sharing and GP data controllership. This action will have no impact on direct patient care, i.e. A&E departments or outpatient departments etc.

Learn more about what impact this will have.

Freeze sign-up to any new data sharing agreements or local system data sharing platforms

Freeze sign-up to any new data sharing agreements or local system data sharing platforms. Read our guidance on GP data sharing and GP data controllership. This action will have no impact on direct patient care, i.e. A&E departments or outpatient departments etc.

Learn more about what impact this will have.

Stop engaging with the e-Referral Advice & Guidance pathway

Unless it is a timely and clinically helpful process in your professional role.

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Stop rationing referrals, investigations, and admissions

• Refer, investigate or admit your patient for specialist care when it is clinically appropriate to do so
• Referrals via the 2-week pathway should still be adhered to
• Outside of urgent suspected cancer referrals (formerly two-week-wait), consider writing a professional referral letter rather than using a locally imposed proforma/referral form - these are not contractual - use and quote BMA guidance/sample wording.

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Switch off GPConnect Update Record functionality

Switch off GP Connect (Update Record) functionality that permits the entry of coding into the GP clinical record by third-party providers. The majority of practices undertook this action during the summer 2024.

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Switch off Medicines Optimisation Software

This is embedded by the local ICB for the purposes of system financial savings and/or rationing (rather than the clinical benefit of your patients). You should always act in your patient’s best interests and prescribe appropriately for the clinical presentation. Some areas may have local commissioned services for this software, and if you are unsure about this, contact your LMC.

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Defer signing declarations of completion for "simpler online requests"

NHS England have said that online consultations should be available to patients every working day 08:00-18:30 during this contractual year, irrespective of practice pressures. We would advise you to defer signing up to this NHSE request so as to allow you to turn off online triage when you have reached your maximum safe capacity each working day. We will issue more guidance on this subject in early 2025 before contractual year end, so as to ensure any funding on offer is received.

Learn more about what impact this will have.

Important letter to all GPs and General Practice staff

GP Practice Premises Reimbursement Letter

Support Organisations for Health Professionals

Who are we

Local Medical Committees (LMCs) are the professional voice of general practice, made up of practising GPs selected by local GPs. LMCs are bodies recognised in statute which are in place to represent the interests of all local GPs and their teams. The Association of Greater Manchester LMCs, led by Dr Amir Hannan, has representatives from each individual LMC in Greater Manchester and has come together to be a bigger voice, a stronger influence on the rapidly evolving changes to Primary Care across Greater Manchester. We are proud to be active partners within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

Providing specialist advice and guidance, the Association's focus is helping practices to secure their future. In today's challenging health and social care environment, it's a crucial role which the Association of Greater Manchester LMCs undertakes with passion, pride and professionalism.

Dr Amir Hannan, MBE, addressing the BMA-LMC conference on the Citizen Access to Records programme 24.11.2022