November 23rd 2023

By Ailsa Colquhoun

LMC Conference receives - but doesn't debate - three dispensing GP motions

DDA added to interface motion

Three motions involving dispensing practices were submitted to the Annual Conference of England LMCs – but were not prioritised for debate. The three motions are:

KERNOW: Dispensing practices that were slow to revert to patient signed FP10s at the end of the pandemic have been penalised by NHSBS to the tune of thousands of pounds for uncollected prescription charges from exempt patients. Conference believes it is unhelpful to destabilise a practice for an administrative error that can be retrospectively corrected and calls upon the GPC England and GPDF to consider a group action to recover these losses

SURREY: That conference calls on NHS England to:

• recognise that the various pharmacy schemes proposed in the "Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to General Practice" to deliver certain primary care services, and the associated funding, make no mention of the 18% of the population (commonly in areas of rural deprivation) who rely on dispensing practices for their care
• commit to funding dispensing practices to deliver the same services, so that their population are not disadvantaged further.

GATESHEAD AND SOUTH TYNESIDE: That conference notes the accelerating collapse of community pharmacy in England and calls for:

• regulation changes to permit pharmacists to dispense similar medications when safe to do so, on occasions of shortage
• adequate reimbursement of the core pharmacist contract, in order to prevent recycled money being used to generate additional work for GPs by means of poorly evidenced 'case-finding'
• income protection for the dispensing element of dispensing surgeries, in order to permit the destabilisation of rural practices

In addition, a themed debate on interface solutions approved the need for the rapid implementation of electronic prescribing for secondary care – but despite assurances given to the DDA, the conference did not include the final three words “and dispensing GPs” in the motion.

The full motion read:

“That conference instructs GPC England to:

• produce an up-to-date suite of guidance and tools for practices on the interface between private providers and general practice
• clearly define what work is and is not core GMS, and produce a suite of resources to empower practices to reject this work if they so choose
• carry out research to quantify the cost impact of unfunded secondary care work undertaken by general practice
• produce and promote legally and contractually enforceable levers for practices to use to financially penalise other providers for unfunded work inappropriately shifted into general practice
• work with the BMA's Consultants Committee, Junior Doctors Committee and Specialist, Associate Specialist and Specialty Doctors Committee and the Dispensing Doctors’ Association, to negotiate with NHS England the rapid implementation of electronic prescribing for secondary care, including the ability connect with community pharmacy.

The LMC England conference takes place November 22-23, 2023.