Dear colleague,
Following LMC elections this summer, Islington LMC started a new three-year term of office on 1 September 2025, with the newly elected LMC being confirmed at its inaugural meeting in September. We would like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves as the Co-Chairs of Islington LMC.
Islington LMC Membership and Contact info
Who we are
Your Islington LMC members for the 2025-2028 term are:
- Dr Anita Baker (sessional)
- Dr Aroop Bhattacharya, St Jonh’s Way Medical Centre (salaried)
- Dr Cindy Cohen (sessional)
- Dr Emily Grant-Arrowsmith, Mildmay Medical Practice (salaried)
- Dr Masarat Jilani, The Village Practice (sessional)
- Dr Katie Lloyd (sessional)
- Dr Devina Maru (sessional)
- Dr Karen Summerfield, St Peters Medical Practice (principal)
- Dr Dabheoc Coleman, Royal Free GP trainee representative and Dr Hunica Singh, Roya Free GP trainee representative (Job share)
- Samantha Hubbard, Practice Manager Observer, The Village Practice
- Lisa Smith, Practice Nurse Observer, St Peters Street Medical Practice
What we do
We are here to support practices and to represent the interests of all local GPs and their practice teams, and one of our key priorities is that we hear the issues and concerns that matter to our local GPs and practices to influence our work. We recognise that this is a two conversation and we will be embarking on a more personal practice/ constituency engagement to hear and listen to your concerns about the pressures working as GPs, but we also need you to reach out to us with any issues or concerns by emailing Sarah Ocran, Committee Liaison Executive sarah.ocran@lmc.org.uk.
We will also be communicating with you and updating you on our work though our regular local newsletters to highlight the LMC’s work and by our LMC members attending local GP meetings including the Islington GP Forum, PCN Clinical Directors meetings and meeting regularly with our GP Provider Alliance (GPPA) borough representatives and Long-Term Conditions Clinical Network Leads for Islington.
What has Islington LMC been working on recently?
DALS interpreting service
Following a discussion at the Islington GP forum where many GPs expressed their frustrations with the poor service, we wrote to the ICB contact for the DALs interpreting service to highlight those concerns which centred on long waits for interpreters and the poor quality of interpreting. We have subsequently met with representatives from DALs as well as the ICB and including NCL LMCs Chairs/Vice Chairs to address those concerns. The DALS team was very responsive to concerns raised and are keen to receive feedback about specific cases so that they can investigate the issues arising. We have been advised that if you can hold on at the end of a phone call for 15 seconds you will be given the option to score the translator from 1-5 (anyone scoring 3 or below will be reviewed by DALS). Please share this information with your practice colleagues. The ICB has also agreed to see if a feedback system can be set up using ACCURX.
Trusts sending letters via other routes
Samantha Hubbard, our Practice Manager Observer, has raised concerns about Whittington Hospital Trust, who without any consultation, started to send letters and other correspondence to practices via various routes other than the standard Docman system. Not only has this created a lot of work for practices; in having to find alternatives in document processing and filing, but it also raised patient safety concerns. We have raised this issue with David Ashford Head of patient systems and IMT, at the PCN Clinical Directors meeting and at the next Whittington CIG meeting, plus also at NHSE London Digital Governance meeting.
If your practice has experienced similar issues with trust communications or missing documentation, as well as any problems with results reporting, please let us know by emailing sarah.ocran@lmc.org.uk so we can raise this at the next CIG meeting.
Working with the Clinical Interface
We regularly attend Trusts Clinical Interface Group (CIGs) meetings both at UCLH and the Whittington Hospital. Collaborative working with secondary care colleagues has included practical implementation the NCL Primary/Secondary Consensus document principles, such as improvements to discharge summaries and patient clinic letters, including feedback on the difficulties contacting specialities, availability of fit notes in A&E and for the future roll out of EPS.
We are always looking to feedback to these groups so if you have any issues/concerns to feedback please email sarah.ocran@lmc.org.uk
To improve mental health services for our patients, our NCL LMC Chairs and Vice-Chairs meet monthly with Dr Vincent Kirchner (Medical Director, North London NHS Mental Health Trust) and his colleagues. The meetings also include discussions to monitor the roll-out of the single point of access for community mental health. We are always looking to feedback any issues that you are experiencing with UCLH, the Whittington Hospital as well as any mental health interface issues that you may have, at the respective CIG meetings so please get in touch by emailing sarah.ocran@lmc.org.uk.
Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (INTs)
We have been attending the Islington Borough Partnership Meetings to ensure that the LMC is part of these discussions and decisions, given the important role of these meetings in supporting health and care provision in Islington. At the recent meeting which focused on neighbourhoods, we heard that a joint integrator proposal which Involves collaboration between the Council, GP Federation, Whittington, and UCH, has been approved by the Borough Partnership Board. The next steps include, finalising a detailed mobilisation plan for operationalising the Neighbourhood Health Model in Islington, identifying key infrastructure needs (estates, workforce, digital systems) and establishing governance structures (digital interoperability and data sharing agreements). There is still uncertainty about practical implementation and expectations from general practice.
Engagement with Islington Council
We met with Councillor, Dr Sara Hyde, Executive Member for Health, Wellbeing & Adult Social Care (and Labour Councillor for Caledonian ward) to discuss issues practices are experiencing with requests for housing, blude badge and other evidence from GPs to support their applications for council services. Following this initial meeting we have now contacted the Housing and recently met with the Blue Badge leads at the Council to discuss these issues. Through their regular engagement with Islington Public Health Team, they are working to secure improvements (increased funding and pharmacy/breathe uplift too) in a Smoking Cessation Locally Commissioned Service. We will also be taking part in a working group that is being set up to improve the process for NHS checks.
Pathways Review
We have been feeding back on clinical pathways and shared care agreements to ensure that they are clinically safe, that practices are funded for any additional work and that patients are not discharged back to their GP for the GP to then refer the patient back for review, or if concerned. This has included feedback on, the UTI pathway, the cardiology pathways, NCL Child Weight Management Pathways for 0–18-year-olds and Insomnia and headache pathways. Our feedback has led to meaningful changes in pathway design.
Engagement with our constituents
One of our key priorities is that we hear the issues and concerns that matter to our local GPs and practices to influence our work and that we also feedback directly to our constituents on our work. We will be doing this though our regular local newsletters to highlight the LMC’s work and by our LMC members attending local GP meetings including the Islington GP Forum, PCN Clinical Directors meetings and meeting regularly with our GP Provider Alliance (GPPA) borough representatives and Long-Term Conditions Clinical Network Leads for Islington. We will be embarking on a more personal practice/ constituency engagement to hear and listen to your concerns about the pressures working as GPs.
Refreshed Londonwide LMCs Buying Group
Our substantially updated Buying Group offer is now live, bringing high quality products, service, opportunities and offers to London general practice at the best prices and with the best possible deals.
The offer now includes a supplier for each of these areas: consumables, insurance, training and practice support and wellbeing (including free and discounted tickets to music, theatre and sports events). In addition, we have four suppliers for digital and tech services covering: cloud telephony, records digitisation, call-and-recall automation and patient registration automation.
Londonwide LMCs GP Support Team
The team offers help and guidance on all practice-related matters including contracts, performance, premises, payments, mergers and retirement and can be contacted via emailing GPSupport@lmc.org.uk.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Karen Summerfield, Co-Chair Islington LMC
Dr Emily Grant-Arrowsmith, Co-Chair Islington LMC
