Dear colleague,
Chair’s introduction
There is currently a lot happening across our patch, particularly with the rollout of the NC LTC. We have secured a significant increase in investment for Redbridge and finally have a 5-year plan to work towards. While the final specifications have not yet been finalised, practices are strongly encouraged to sign up if they haven’t already done so. Please note the caveat: practices reserve the right to decline any parts of the specification that have not yet been released but come out subsequently.
I would also like to spotlight Dr. Sheedy, a recent addition to our committee, who is already working incredibly hard on our members’ behalf. You can read more about her in her own words below.
Other notable updates and achievements are covered in this newsletter, but as ever, please do get in touch with any of us if you have any queries.
Best wishes,
Dr Naj Seedat
Chair
Redbridge LMC
Member spotlight
I am a salaried GP at The Broadway Surgery, working in Wanstead and Woodford PCN . Having grown up in Redbridge since the age of 11, I am proud to serve the same community that has been my home for much of my life.
Although relatively new to the LMC, I am full of energy and passion to make a difference.
Alongside my clinical work, I am involved in the training and assessment of future GPs and have a particular interest in systems thinking, patient safety, accountability and improving how healthcare works.
As an LMC member, I hope to support collaborative working across the health system while advocating for a general practice service that is properly resourced to provide the high-quality care our patients deserve. If you have any questions, concerns or ideas you’d like to discuss, please feel free to get in touch. While I may not always have the answer immediately, I will know who to ask and will make sure you get the information and support you need.
What has RedbridgeLMC been working on recently?
LMC focus on: Shared Care
Shared care and high-risk drug monitoring are additional, voluntary activities that fall outside your core GP contract. You are under no obligation to accept them unless they are part of a properly funded and commissioned Local Enhanced Service (LES/LCS). North East London (NEL) remains a major outlier in London by failing to commission this work.
Principles:
Moving work from hospital to general practice does not make the work disappear. It transfers clinical responsibility, administrative work, clinical risk and cost. A shared-care protocol sets out how responsibility might be shared. It does not commission capacity, provide staff, create recall systems, fund appointments or pay for clinical responsibility. Unless a GP has expressly accepted shared-care responsibility for an individual patient, prescribing and related monitoring remain with the initiating specialist service.
Key Facts for Practices
- You can decline: the BMA and NHS England are entirely clear – shared care can be declined on a case-by-case basis without you needing to justify your decision. It is unacceptable for hospitals to tell patients their GP will take over without your prior agreement.
- It’s more than just a blood test: the true cost includes identifying patients, coding, call-and-recall, chasing non-attenders, reviewing results, safety-netting, written SOPs, and indemnity implications. This cannot be absorbed into core funding.
Our position is not ‘no shared care’. It is ‘no unfunded, unsafe transfer of specialist work into core general practice’. Where there is a properly funded, safe and workable service specification, practices can decide whether to participate.
End of Life transcribing / MAAR Charts
When practices originally served notice regarding MAAR/authorisation forms, an exception was made to continue writing charts for end-of-life patients as an interim measure. ELFT responded constructively by putting a service in place to cover even these end-of-life cases, successfully removing the administrative burden from GPs. However, NELFT has failed to do the same, leaving practices in NELFT areas carrying an unfair and inequitable workload.
Our Position:
The London Ambulance Service has highlighted that a lack of standardized prescribing across NEL creates a clinical risk. Patient safety and practice sustainability require a consistent approach. It is unacceptable for NELFT practices to continue shouldering work that ELFT counterparts have been freed from.
Next Steps:
Following the feedback we have already collected from practices, we have written to NELFT to ask they match ELFT’s transcription staffing arrangements. If they don’t, practices will be within their rights to serve notice to NELFT for MAAR charts. If practices wish to do so, the LMC will provide guidance on how best to do so.
If you have any queries regarding this upcoming action, please contact your local committee representative.
Quality alerts
The LMC recognises the importance of practices using quality alerts to raise interface concerns, particularly where there are patient safety risks, repeated inappropriate workload transfer, or poor communication from providers.
BHRUT confirmed that it has reviewed its internal GP alert process and introduced a new standard operating procedure from 1 June. The Trust will use its internal reporting system to capture themes, response times and actions, with reporting into quality forums and the ICB.
This is a welcome development, but the LMC will want to see whether it results in meaningful change. Redbridge LMC representatives are also working on how to make it easier for practices and PCNs to raise and track alerts, identify themes and ensure there is a feedback loop.
Practices are encouraged to submit quality alerts where appropriate. These should focus on genuine quality, safety and pathway issues rather than general frustration. The more specific and evidenced the alerts are, the stronger the LMC position will be in raising themes with providers and commissioners.
Link for NEL quality alerts.
Community gynae hub
GPs had reported patient concerns that the BHRUT community gynae hub had mainly male clinicians and that some patients were not completing appointments. We have been raising this for some time as a patient care and inclusivity issue, and the service now reports that the clinicians at the hub are predominantly female and the service will seek to accommodate patient requests where possible.
Please contact your LMC rep if this is not your experience of the service.
BHRUT EPR System Glitches
We have escalated several urgent issues with the new Electronic Patient Record system at BHRUT:
- Duplicate letters: multiple identical letters are being sent for a single patient.
- No clinician designation: correspondence lacks clear identifying information for the responsible clinician.
- Exposed contact details: secure, professional practice email addresses are incorrectly appearing on letters sent to patients.
The EPR implementation team is currently investigating fixes for these issues.
Action: If your practice is experiencing any other EPR-related glitches or safety concerns, please report them immediately to your local representative so we can add them to our escalation list.
New Enhanced MSK Service & Procurement
- New enhanced MSK service: A new service is launching with a target turnaround time of 6 weeks for all referrals. This is funded by a nearly £1 million investment, redirected from savings made by stopping direct GP access to MSK MRIs.
- MSK referral system procurement: The contract for the MSK referral system (currently REGO) is up for procurement. Dr. Okorie and Dr. Hamid are working closely with the MSK team on behalf of the LMC to ensure any specification for the service is fit-for-purpose service for practices.
Action: If you are experiencing any issues, please contact your local LMC representative or feed back directly to ian.williamson@lmc.org.uk.
BHRUT Advice & Guidance (A&G) Dashboard
We are in discussions with BHRUT to keep GPs informed about Advice & Guidance waiting times across different specialties. BHRUT has started sharing A&G performance data with the LMC. The overall response rate presented was around 58%, with performance varying considerably between specialties. Some of the poorer-performing services appear to be affected primarily by capacity and job-planning pressures rather than IT problems. The Trust is exploring how to share waiting time information directly with practices.
Action: To assist with this work, please report any issues with specific specialties—including excessive delays, inappropriate rejections, or other challenges—to your local LMC representative.
Levemir withdrawal
The LMC is concerned about the planned withdrawal of Levemir and the potential impact on practices. Members were concerned that this could become a significant patient safety issue if patients are not reviewed and switched in a planned way before supplies cease.
This is not a simple medicine swap. Changing long-acting insulin may require review of the patient’s full diabetic regimen, dose adjustment, safety-netting and follow-up. Members noted that secondary care and community services may not have sufficient capacity to absorb this work, creating a risk that it falls to general practice by default.
The LMC view is that this requires a clear NEL plan, proper resourcing, and support for practices. It should not simply be transferred to practices without discussion, funding or safety arrangements. We have raised this with the ICB and we are awaiting a response.
Care home LES — positive change following Redbridge challenge
A positive update was noted in relation to the care home LES. Following concerns raised by the LMC, the eligibility criteria are being changed so that payment is based on patient registration rather than the geography of the care home.
This is an important correction. Where a care home resident is registered with a Redbridge practice, the practice should be eligible for the relevant payment, regardless of the physical location of the care home. The change is expected to apply retrospectively from 1 April.
NELFT community services
There continue to be significant concerns about delays and capacity pressures in community services, including district nursing, community heart failure, domiciliary phlebotomy and community diabetes services.
The LMC’s position remains that these capacity problems should be addressed through commissioning and service improvement rather than by transferring unfunded work to general practice. Practices are advised to raise quality alerts and let the LMC know if they experience issues with community services.
Haematology Advice & Guidance
BHRUT has proposed restricting access to haematology Advice & Guidance (A&G), citing demand that is substantially greater than available capacity. The LMC considers this to be a capacity and commissioning issue rather than an interface issue. Restricting A&G risks transferring additional clinical workload and risk to GPs without additional support or funding.
North East London sector issues
Many issues affecting Redbridge also affect other boroughs in NEL and we work closely with our counterparts to address and resolve them at sector level. As well as this borough newsletter, there is a NEL newsletter to communicate our sector work. The most recent issue featured the neighbourhood health framework, a NEL weight management update, PLT funding and more. You can read it here NEL Newsletters.
New PCSE list cleanse approach causing practice stability concerns
In October 2025 PCSE changed from giving practices six months to confirm that patients with an FP69 flag were still living nearby and wished to remain on their list, to only three months. Londonwide LMCs have produced guidance for practices, including resources to communicate with patients and a form for practices to report how they are being affected. They are also escalating the problem to NHS leaders, media, politicians and others in positions of influence, including securing national media coverage in The Independent using examples from LMC members’ practices, followed by holding a briefing for MPs at the start of August.
Well done to the prize draw winners from our Buying Group survey
Thank you to everyone that took part in our Buying Group survey, we plan to run another one in the autumn. The randomly selected winners of the gift vouchers were:
- Trudy Do, Havergal Surgery
- Karen Tobin, The Bromley Common Practice
- Anca Radulescu, St. Margarets Medical Practice
- Marian Negoita, Amersham Vale Practice
- Aparna Pal, Jubilee Garden Medical Centre
Our Buying Group suppliers are:
- Hillcroft Surgery Supplies – Get next day delivery and industry leading stock availability, thanks to their investment in substantial warehouse facilities.
- Practice Index – Pick and choose what you need out of their learning platform, or software to manage HR, finance, compliance and rotas.
- Hippo Labs – Have your call-and-recall work smarter, reach more patients and improve QOF attainment. Hippo Labs automatically customises many types of message.
- Equity Energies – Reduce energy costs, save time, become greener and remove the administrative burden of managing utilities by having experts do it all for you.
- Surgery Connect – Automates more tasks within your phone system, integrates with clinical records and seamlessly bridges in and out-of-hours.
- MIAB – You existing policies may have more gaps than you think, particularly in developing areas like cyber and ARRS employment. Rely on MIAB’s specialist expertise to ensure you are fully covered.
- Restore Information Management – Whether you need a room full of records doing or a steady flow of new registrations, Restore take the hassle out of digitising patient records.
- Tickets for Good – Reward yourself and your colleagues with free and discounted tickets to concerts, theatre shows, sports and more!
Engaging with Redbridge LMC
We are keen to listen to practices, to understand the issues they are worried about and the challenges they are currently facing – let us know if you would like a call or for an LMC member to visit your practice for a conversation. Please email ian.williamson@lmc.org.uk.
Please also visit the Londonwide LMC website for a one-stop shop on our support for practices—details of our services, practical resources (including template letters and guidance), and details of your Newham LMC committee, including meeting dates and previous local and NEL newsletters.