GP Collective Action
On 1st August 2024, the British Medical Association (BMA) confirmed that its GP members had voted in favour of ‘collective action’.
This means that, with effect from 1st August, GPs can choose from the list of ten actions below to take action/s that will stop or reduce certain work.
- Limit patient contacts per clinician per day to 25
- Stop engaging with e-referral Advice and Guidance
- Serve notice on any voluntary services which plug local commissioning gaps
- Switch off medicines optimisation software where for financial benefit rather than clinical
- Stop rationing referrals and investigations – refer where appropriate
- Defer signing off digital telephony and online consultations
- Switch off GPConnect functionality to permit entry of coding into GP clinical systems
- Withdraw data sharing permission where used for secondary purposes (not direct care)
- Freeze sign up to new data sharing
- Defer signing up to local or national pilot programmes
GP practices remain open to see patients and are committed to providing care for their patients. Patients should continue to attend appointments unless told otherwise and contact their GP practice as normal. GP practices should let patients know what action they are taking and, where relevant, direct patients to alternative, appropriate services.
GP colleagues will make individual and practice based decisions with regards whether they will take any actions. There is no specific end date for collective action currently and GP practices may vary which actions they choose to take over time.
Whilst many practices will advise the ICB if they are intending to take any action, they are not obliged to. The ICB is liaising with GP colleagues in order to ensure that we have as much information as possible with regards the impact on services for patients. We are also working closely with colleagues across the Lincolnshire system to monitor activity so we can identify any changes in activity.
Patient safety underpins everything we do as an ICB. Given this, where practices have decided to serve notice on services, the ICB will establish alternative arrangements to ensure that patients are able to access the services they need. The ICB appreciates that patients will want to understand what is happening at their GP practice and if services are no longer going to be available how they access the ones they need. As this is an evolving position the ICB has established this information page where patients can check if they have queries regarding local services.
Any patient with a query should contact LICB.office@nhs.net