This week's GPC meeting on Thursday 16th January will be critical for General Practice. Today (13th Jan), an urgent letter will go out requesting feedback from our LMC members. Please click on the link below to voice your concerns:-

https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/primary-care-networks-service-specifications/

The BMA has produced a handy summary of the current proposals from NHSE for reference, on the PDF below, in which it is possible to more readily spot the areas of major concern:-

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1EMgxmcH5m6d6TfR2YYfKQaEy1UPCYSjW

For example:

- Each care home covered by a PCN must receive fortnightly visits from a GP and have a consistent, multidisciplinary team assigned to support its residents with weekly visits (page 17 of the draft specs).

- GPC that the SMRs will mean a 50,000 patient PCN requires up to 3.8 WTE pharmacists, 1.6 WTE admin support and leaving practices to collectively staff up to 1.5 GP sessions per week, needed to oversee the reviews and follow-up complex cases (page 16 of the draft specs).

Personalised care and support plans will need to be produced for all people in the last 12 months of life and all individuals covered by the anticipatory care and enhanced health in care homes services (page 17 of the draft specs).

- Several LMC's have been analysing the proposals and estimate practices in a 50,000 PCN taking on 14 additional clinical sessions and 128 hours of admin a week to deliver the activity envisioned, costing over £100,000 per year, per practice.

There are also so many unknowns, activity defined simply as "support/explore/enable/ensure" without indication of what clinical and administrative work is involved or by which roles. Clearly, much debate remains but it is important to have our voice heard, and we would encourage all our members to respond to the request for feedback as soon as possible.