Londonwide LMCs

Dear Colleagues,

Introduction by the LMC Chair
As Chair of Southwark LMC, I am delighted to provide a brief introduction to this inaugural newsletter.

Over the years, we have seen changes and upheaval in the local healthcare landscape, but nothing like the funding and workload pressure over the last couple of years. It does feel that positive change needs to come, and it cannot come soon enough.

Southwark LMC is taking every opportunity to help commissioners and other local health, and social care partners understand the immense pressure general practice is under.

LMC members are eager to hear from you and the challenges you are facing. This will provide evidence that general practice needs more financial and organisational support, if it is to deliver type quality of care that it desperately wants to, and what our patients truly deserve.

We aim to send regular LMC newsletters every alternate month to Southwark practices so please do keep an eye out for these and provide any feedback regarding content to us so that we can ensure these are helpful for you.

The LMC is here to represent your views and ensure that the voice of General Practice is heard loudly and clearly.

Yours faithfully,
Dr Ami Kanabar

Current Southwark LMC committee members

Dr Chawdhery, Mahreen – PMS Principal, 306 Medical Centre
Dr Hasan, Sharjeel- Salaried, Quay Health Solutions
Dr Kanabar, Ami – PMS Salaried, Blackfriars Medical Practice
Dr Onyeka, Wilson – APMS Principal, Lister Primary Care Centre
Dr Rastogi, Robin – PMS Principal, Nexus at Bermondsey & Lansdowne Medical Mission
Dr Salau, Ibrahim Ademola – PMS Principal, Acorn Surgery & Gaumont House Surgery
Dr Topham, Lily- PMS Salaried, Blackfriars Medical Practice
Dr Vasant, Kishorchandra, PMS Principal, Brunswick Park Family Practice

Following the recent LMC elections our new membership for the 2025-28 term will officially take up our posts on 1 September. At our first meeting of the new LMC term later in the autumn we will decide on who our Chair and Vice-Chair for the term will be.

Non-Voting LMC representatives

Mr Edward Drake, Practice Manager, Elm Lodge Surgery
Ms Claire Lannie, Practice Nurse, Elm Lodge Surgery
Dr Fiyinfoluwa Babatunde. Sessional, VTS Representative

What is the LMC and what do we do?
The Local Medical Committee (LMC) is a body recognised in statue, made up of elected members from Southwark that works on your behalf with commissioners and other stakeholders at both local and SE London level to represent the interests of all GPs in Southwark.

The LMC meets regularly with the Integrated Care Board (ICB, Local Authority and broader system stakeholders and actively participates in negotiations on local General Practice contracts. We also contribute to national contract debates via engagement with the General Practitioners Committee (GPC) of the British Medical Association (BMA).

The LMC is here for partners, sessional GPs (salaried and GP locums) and all practice staff. We are supported by staff from Londonwide LMCs:

Dr Sara Riley, Medical Director
Daniele Serdoz, Director of Primary Care (Interim)
James Winstanley, Assistant Director of Primary Care
Aisha Riaz, Committee Liaison Executive
Josh Start, Committee Administrator

If you have any queries or questions, please contact the LMC via Aisha.riaz@lmc.org.uk.

GP Support Team
Southwark practices can access confidential support and advice about practice specific issues via Londonwide LMCs GP Support Team GPSupport@lmc.org.uk. For further information upon what the GP Support Team can help you with, please see this link.

Southwark LMC Membership and Contact info

Londonwide Local Medical Committees – Constituent Survey

We have instigated an organisational stocktake and are seeking feedback from you and your practice teams to better understand your needs and priorities for our services going forwards.

The survey will remain open until 15 August 2025.

All responses will be anonymous unless you choose to actively identify yourself within your free text response/s. Thank you for taking the time to contribute to this survey. A short summary of our role and how we support practices is available if it would assist you in responding.

Fill in the survey
Share the survey via WhatsApp

What has Southwark LMC been working on recently?

Constituent engagement
To help maintain constituents’ contact, effective representation and ensure constituent voices are heard, we have assigned an LMC rep to each Neighbourhood in Southwark. Please look out for emails from your allocated representative and do reach out to them if you’d like to raise anything via the LMC.

Integrated Neighbourhood Working
Southwark LMC members are working hard to ensure that the voice of General Practice is heard in decisions about Integrated Neighbourhood Teams and new structures being developed. The LMC will continue to work actively with all stakeholders to challenge and contribute to ongoing discussions around neighbourhood working.

We have collaborated closely with the GP Federations—Quay Health Solutions (QHS) and Improving Health Limited (IHL)—in relation to the formation of the Southwark General Practice Provider Alliance (GPPA), which is partnering with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) to act as the Integrator in Southwark.

It was encouraging to see so many of you at the all-practice meeting in June, where member practices were able to hear about the plans first-hand and raise questions and concerns.

We are now supporting the development of next steps, including work on a Memorandum of Understanding between the GPPA and GSTT. The LMC continues to raise important issues such as appropriate funding to reflect any transfer of workload, and clarity around governance. Southwark LMC is strongly committed to advocating for strength and parity of the General Practice voice through the GPPA partnering with GSTT as the integrator.

You said, we did

In each of our newsletters, we will include a ‘You said, we did’ section to outline the action we have undertaken in response to constituent queries.

Problem: Adult ADHD diagnosis & management and lack of ongoing provision of care.
Actions: The LMC has been engaged in longstanding discussions with the ICB regarding the absence of a commissioned adult ADHD service for Southwark patients, and the significant pressure this place on General Practice particularly in relation to shared care agreements.More recently, we have been providing the General Practice perspective on proposed changes to local pathways, including the introduction of a single point of access for ADHD referrals across South East London, which the ICB aims to implement by the end of Q3 or early Q4.We continue to raise concerns specific to Southwark, particularly regarding adult ADHD patients whose needs fall outside the scope of the currently proposed service.

Problem: Impact of NIC increases and inflation.
Actions: This sits with the GPCE and remains a national issue.

Problem: Slow progress in agreeing local targets and funding pressures.
Actions: With the support of Londonwide, Southwark LMC colleagues have regular meetings with the ICB SEL Contracts Managers who have been tasked with looking at the review of the PHM and PMS contracts. Throughout the subgroup meetings and through letters to the ICB, we continue to emphasise that GP work must be renumerated appropriately, and contracts must be commissioned within appropriate timelines to support GPs to work efficiently and effectively.As per the LMC’s request, the ICB have agreed to delay the implementation of the new contracts to April 2026 as the previous proposal was to implement the contracts mid-year from 1 October 2025. The LMC have written to the ICB outlining concerns including clear and timeline communication of changes to practices, the appropriate alignment of indicators with available funding and setting realistic indicators where targets consider the workload required and the capacity of practices to meet targets effectively without compromising service or quality delivery.

Problem: Increasing workload and concerns that Advice & Guidance impacts safe working.
Actions: Londonwide LMCs will be collating a list of queries related to the Advice & Guidance section of the 25/26 GP Contract for escalation to local GPCE reps. Southwark LMC continues to work locally and with SEL ICB to consider workload related to primary care / secondary interface. Please continue to send issues related to this to your LMC.

Problem: Urgent DN referrals being rejected in Rotherhithe locality.
Actions: This has been escalated to ICB and the GSTT team are reviewing this case for learning.

Londonwide LMCs SEL updates

Inclisran
Please see the letter to SEL constituents regarding Inclisiran prescribing and administration in general practice in the context of ongoing concerns regarding the safety and resources required for practices to administer it.

It states that practices are not contractually obliged to provide this service and the LMC would advise that practices make their own decision about whether to take on the responsibility and costs to prescribe this drug or not.

Weight Management Programme in SEL
From 23 June 2025 NHS England guidance on Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) stipulates that it must be implemented in primary care. That implementation can be via general practice, federations, or community specialist clinics. This is a nationally agreed service, with local ICB commissioners. Tirzepatide represents a new therapy for weight management, but requires structured implementation, appropriate monitoring, and clarity around responsibilities.

Responsibility for commissioning local service/ access has been delegated to ICBs. The funding for this is based on population obesity levels and is separated into drug costs and primary care management costs.

This work is above core work and so non contractual other than where ICBs have commissioned delivery by GPs at practice, PCN, Federation level or a single point of access. GPs could engage in prescribing where they feel clinically safe and it is appropriate to do so without funding if they wish. Details on the commissioned service in SEL ICB is linked below.

Tirzepatide prescribing must be accompanied by wrap around support consisting of psychological, nutritional and exercise advice, and this will be delivered separately through a centrally funded digital package in the first year.

The target population for Tirzepatide will be risk stratified into cohorts and the first year will focus on the highest end; those with a BMI ≥ 40 and at least four comorbidities, including:

A BMI of 40+ (dyslipidaemia/ abnormal fat levels in the blood)
Hypertension (high blood pressure)
Obstructive sleep apnoea (when your breathing stops and starts while you sleep)
Cardiovascular disease (heart and blood vessel disease)
Type 2 diabetes mellitus

SEL ICB have issued comms via SELnet: IMPORTANT: Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) Service Model Update.

GPC England has produced a Focus on Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for weight management in General Practice document, which explains how Tirzepatide is used, commissioning arrangements (responsibility for funding lies with ICBs), and responding to information requests from private providers.

The GPC guidance also includes a template letter for practices to respond to requests for medical information following a private consultation.

The BMA have also produced guidance on Mounjaro.

Synnovis
On Thursday 26 June SEL GP representatives and SEL Londonwide met face to face with members of the Synnovis clinical and management which included the CEO of Synlab and the COO of GSST.

The aim of the meeting was to:

Enable the Trusts, Synnovis and Pathology Business Unit colleagues to understand the issues and experiences of primary care with the current service and the impact this is having on patient care, experience and outcomes.
Provide an opportunity for Synnovis and the trusts to share the challenges they have and the work they are doing to transform and improve the service.
Share and discuss the governance and contracting arrangements.
Address the areas that have been raised as concerns by GP practices.
Agree on priority areas and future engagement and communication with primary care clinicians.

Attendees felt that it was a productive meeting. There are many actions to follow up on and Londonwide LMCs will continue to communicate directly with Synnovis on all levels to secure a way forward for an effective and reliable SEL pathology service for constituents.

Londonwide LMCs new CEO

Dr Lisa Harrod-Rothwell officially became CEO of Londonwide LMCs in May, replacing Dr Michelle Drage who has retired after many decades representing London’s GP practices. Lisa is joined by Dr Elliott Singer who has stepped into the Deputy CEO role, which Lisa held for nearly 10 years.

Lisa’s message on taking up her new role can be read here, she is also on social media (LinkedIn and BlueSky) and aiming to share updates on these more frequently.

Resources

Events and training

Londonwide LMCs’ Workforce Training and Innovation Team (WTI Team)

The WTI Team provides essential training for general practice nurses (GPNs), health care support workers (HCSWs) and practice managers (PMs) working in London general practice. The Team also runs events for practice staff throughout the year. A list of current training is available on the Londonwide LMCs website . For more information on any of the Team’s services, please email wti@lmc.org.uk.

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