Putting GPs at the heart of the NHS
Dr Lisa Harrod-Rothwell, CEO
| Londonwide LMCs
As new CEO of Londonwide LMCs, I’m proud to lead the team supporting London’s GP practices as they continue to offer services to people of all ages, act as gatekeepers to other parts of the health service, and manage complexity, uncertainty and risk on behalf of the NHS.
General practice, at practice-level and at-scale, has a long history of evolving to meet the changing needs of patients. Government and other agencies need to work collaboratively with general practice to tackle the whole-system approach needed to address the increasing complexity of need and the NHS’ challenges.
We can help.
Londonwide LMCs represent over 1,100 GP practices responsible for the care of nearly ten million people in the Capital. Practices offer a very wide range of services to people of all ages, act as gate keepers to other parts of the health service, and manage complexity, uncertainty and risk on behalf of the NHS.
Sustainable, thriving general practices embedded in local communities are critical to patient satisfaction, the delivery of high-quality, cost-effective healthcare and the success of all key health deliverables
Local Medical Committees (elected groups of GPs and practice staff, funded directly by practices) work hard to improve services for patients. They work with commissioners to highlight and address issues impacting their patients and to advocate for the bespoke needs of their local communities in the planning and delivery of services and pathways.
In general practice, we hear immense concern that top-down initiatives are resulting in transactional encounters and eroding the core characteristics of our “cradle to grave” system, including:
- holistic care
- continuity of care
- appropriately managing complex undifferentiated illness,
- simultaneously managing the acute and chronic health problems
- coordinating care, and promoting the health and wellbeing of individuals and local communities and the prevention of ill-health.
Given the increasing complexity of patient need and the NHS financial constraints, it has never been more important to champion the characteristics of family medicine and the family doctor.
GPs working in practices embedded in local communities bring a holistic approach to continuity of care that builds trusted relationships with patients from birth to adulthood, through big life, work, community and family changes; supporting and caring for patients’ health. And GP surgeries play an important role in supporting the health and wellbeing of local communities, providing Londoners with places of safety, trust and community.
It’s very tough in general practice right now. Practices are increasingly under pressure to deliver more with fewer GPs. The value we offer to patients, local communities and the wider NHS is often not fully understood, and we know that GPs struggle to provide the safe and effective care that provides patient satisfaction and good health outcomes and professional fulfilment; the care that took years of study and training to develop.
Untenable workloads harm safe, effective patient care, resulting in staff overwhelm, low morale, distress and burnout. Positive grass roots innovation is suffocated and stifled. Staff are leaving, increasing the pressure on those who remain and leading to a spiral of further attrition.
General practice needs more doctors and nurses, each full-time-equivalent GP providing care to fewer patients, to be able to provide safe and effective patient care; satisfy patients and optimise health and wellbeing outcomes; and to enable the continued evolution of care and services to tackle challenges and deliver an NHS fit for the future. Those clinicians need to be freed of the box ticking that limits time with patients and allowed to focus on the person in front of them.
Will you work with us to ensure that the 10 Year Plan for Health:
- gives those closest to the challenges/problems – those delivering care, in collaboration with those receiving care – autonomy and ownership to identify well-informed solutions;
- creates the the conditions for innovation to thrive: thinking time to collaborate and develop new ideas, funding, the freedom to try, learn and adapt;
- widens strategic alignment of elements such as contracts, national prioritisation, policy and regulation to enable adoption and spread of successful innovation?
I am proud to champion these amazing professionals. To learn more about London’s hardest working clinical teams, please visit www.lmc.org.uk/find-your-local-lmc/
