Local leaders urge BMA to ballot GPs on taking ‘more significant’ industrial action

England’s LMCs have called on the BMA to ballot the GP profession on taking ‘more significant’ industrial action.

At their annual conference in London today, LMC leaders voted in favour of a motion recognising that collective action ‘is a powerful tool’. But they said it is ‘not having enough impact’ to drive the changes needed to ‘ensure the survival of general practice’, and called on the BMA’s GPC to ballot the profession to ramp it up.

This follows three months of GP collective action during which practices have been able to choose from a list of nine options, rather than taking unilateral action.

Ahead of today’s vote, a large number of LMC leaders spoke of their experience of collective action to date.

Among them, Cambridgeshire LMC’s Dr Ben Curtis said: ‘Collective action is working, and it’s vital for our survival. I’m here simply to re-emphasis that we cannot do more with less.

‘We must do less with less, and if funding doesn’t keep pace, we have to reduce our services and extend our wait times for patients, or we work harder, see more patients and end up staying later every day.

‘We must respect ourselves as GPs, and unfortunately, we either make the patients wait or we make our doctors run late.

‘It’s hugely reassuring as part of collective action that we’ve chosen the former for the long game of rebuilding GP.

‘For me, 25 appointments a day has brought the joy back into GP consulting, and I would encourage all who haven’t adopted it to do so. So let’s keep the momentum.’

And Dr Shaba Nabi, from Avon LMC, said: ‘Now I feel a little bit like that programme with Ronnie Corbett, where “this worm has turned”. GPs have turned – normally quiet, sleepy GPs have turned, and we must continue the momentum. We must continue. We must be in solidarity, and we must act to stage two of collective action.’

In response, GPC England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer told the conference: ‘We’re listening, and we’ll take this all away, and we’ll come back to you, and we’ll try and reboot and refresh and rebuild it from our side, too.’

This morning, Dr Bramall-Stainer urged GPs and LMCs to ensure they were participating in collective action to continue to put pressure on the Government.

Earlier this month, the GPCE set out a list of demands for the Government to meet in order to bring an end to GP collective action, including a ‘cast-iron commitment’ to agree and implement a new national GP contract within this parliament.

Pulse recently reported on an ICB warning that GP collective action in the area could result in £4.2m in financial losses, particularly due to increases in prescribing costs.