The British Medical Association (BMA) has revealed that there are no plans at this stage to hold a ballot on GP collective and industrial action including “non-compliance with GP Connect”.
The BMA last week (November 20) told C+D that while GP leaders from local medical committees (LMCs) voted in favour of a motion demanding one earlier this month, there are no current plans for a ballot.
But any protest action - if it goes ahead - would be taken in consultation with BMA members and put to a vote, it noted.
Read more: GP leaders call for industrial action ballot over GP Connect ‘concerns’
The motion was raised by Avon LMC at the BMA’s annual conference of England LMC representatives demanding, among other things, that a “clear timeline be set out for an indicative ballot of the profession” on the topic of “non-compliance with GP Connect”.
It explained that this was due to “growing concerns over data protection, inappropriate third-party access and the erosion of patient confidentiality”.
GP Connect Update Record, first rolled out in April last year, is a service that allows pharmacists to update GP records with summaries from Pharmacy First consultations and became a mandatory part of the GP contract last month.
Pharmacy First funding
The BMA also confirmed to C+D that contrary to reports, a motion calling for Pharmacy First funding to be “reallocated to general practice” to ensure patients receive “continuity of care from their GP team” was not voted on at the conference.
The motion claimed that the Pharmacy First service has “shortcomings”, including “limitations in scope, variability in service quality and the risk of fragmenting patient care”.
Read more: GPs call for Pharmacy First funds to be ‘reallocated’ to practices
It added that the “redirection of funding from general practice to Pharmacy First undermines the sustainability of primary care services”.
And although it was not debated at the conference, the BMA said at the time that the chair of its GP committee for England (GPCE) “is prepared to accept [it] without debate as a reference” rather than as policy.
Read more: Efforts by GPs to undermine Pharmacy First only strengthen it
GP leaders did, however, vote in favour of negotiating an “immediate abolition” of the “one-mile dispensing rule” at the conference, which prevents dispensing doctors from dispensing prescriptions to patients who live within one mile of a pharmacy.
It comes after IT officials from the BMA and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) said in a joint letter in September that they did “not yet feel” that GP Connect “can command the confidence of the profession”.
Read more: BMA and RCGP warn government not to switch-on GP Connect
They urged NHS England (NHSE) to “put on hold” the October 1 mandatory switch-on date for the service “until the concerns have been resolved”.
Meanwhile, GP leaders voted “overwhelmingly” for pharmacy blood pressure checks to be “terminated with immediate effect and the money put into pharmacy dispensing fees” at last year’s BMA LMCs conference.
