string(4) "news" Londonwide LMCs

Health landscape report: 22 September – 26 September

  • Latest news

This weekly report shares new data and policy information relating to general practice, with selected facts and figures highlighted.

This report is a flexible summary, with the aim of sharing and highlighting a wide range of data and policy information relating to London general practice published in a given week. Where we view information to be of significant interest it is reproduced directly below the links to make the key points quicker to digest.  

Please feel free to share any useful stats/links you think we could include in future reports.  

Official bodies    

NHS Digital 

Department of Health and Social Care 

UK Health Security Agency 

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency 

BMA 

Policy, think tanks, charities, and representative bodies  

The Health Foundation 

  • A new model of leadership [26/9]. 
  • This blog discusses the emergence of NHS groups—collaborative arrangements between NHS trusts aimed at improving care and efficiency. These groups often adopt a dual leadership structure, with strategic oversight at the group level and operational management at individual sites. This model enables large organisations to balance day-to-day service delivery with long-term planning. While some groups, like University Hospitals Birmingham, have seen success through devolved leadership, others struggle due to unclear strategies and lack of infrastructure. The blog highlights a gap in evidence supporting the effectiveness of these models and calls for better leadership training tailored to the unique demands of group structures. 

Ipsos 

  • What the UK thinks about AI [22/9]. 
  • The latest wave of research exploring UK attitudes to AI considers how to build trust in AI given public concerns about risks to the economy and society. Key insights include:  
    • People in the UK are more likely to see AI as a risk than an opportunity in a range of areas. This includes 59% who view AI as a risk to the UK’s national security, 45% as a risk to UK society, and 39% as a risk to the UK economy. However, perceptions of whether AI is a risk or opportunity vary, including based on how often someone uses AI in their day-to-day life. 
    • A lack of trust (38%), concerns about privacy and data security (32%), and ethical worries (28%) are key barriers for UK adults when using or considering generative AI tools. 
    • How comfortable UK adults are with AI varies depending on the specific use case. For example, while people are open to the use of AI to personalise training programmes to support employees (40% comfortable), they are not comfortable for the use of AI to monitor employee performance to feed into evaluations of their performance (56% uncomfortable). 

Nuffield Trust 

  • NHS continuing health care: a Q&A with Sharon Allen [26/9].  
  • Sharon Allen, Chief Executive of Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, shares her deeply personal and professional experience with NHS Continuing Health Care (CHC). Her mother, aged 92 with advanced dementia, was denied CHC despite clear needs. The process was opaque, adversarial, and emotionally draining, involving lost paperwork, repeated assessments, and impersonal rejection letters. Sharon criticises the system for prioritising gatekeeping over person-centred care, burdening families and professionals alike. She calls for reform to make CHC more empathetic, transparent, and focused on individual needs rather than bureaucratic battles. 
  • NHS continuing health care: consigned to the too difficult box? [26/9]. 
  • NHS Continuing Health Care (CHC) is meant to support people with complex needs outside hospital, fully funded by the NHS. However, eligibility is unclear and inconsistently applied across regions. The assessment process is stressful and poorly understood, and fewer people are qualifying despite rising demand. Financial pressures and system fragmentation are contributing to inequity. Without reform, CHC risks being sidelined, undermining efforts to shift care into the community.  

General Medical Council 

  • GMC publishes annual whistleblowing report [25/9].  
  • The report shows 45 concerns were raised with the GMC between April 2024 and the end of March 2025. These disclosures were made by 18 doctors, 11 other healthcare professionals and 16 were made anonymously. 

Digital Health 

  • GP surgeries pilot proxy access for families on NHS App [26/9]. 
  • A pilot programme involving 68 GP surgeries is testing proxy access on the NHS App, allowing parents and carers to manage healthcare tasks—like booking appointments and ordering prescriptions—for their loved ones. This digital feature replaces the old paper-based system, streamlining admin for GP staff and improving accessibility for people facing digital or language barriers. So far, nearly 12,000 people have signed up, with a full rollout expected in 2026. 

Smart Thinking 

Think tank: Re:State 

  • Operation automation: how to achieve productivity gains in the healthcare system [17/9].  
  • This blog argues that automation can significantly boost productivity in the NHS by streamlining processes, reducing costs, and improving patient care. However, adoption is slow due to funding, approval, and change management challenges. The authors call for better investment access and support to make automation a standard part of healthcare delivery.

London Trusts    

Barts Health NHS Trust 

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust