Page 12 - IDF Journal 2023

IDF News – Spring 2023
GP Committee’s Report
Dr Shaima Villait
Chair, IDF GP Committee
I can only describe 2022 as the post-apocalyptic year.
We started 2022 with multiple names for COVID-19 variants along with Plan A’s and
Plan B’s. We ended 2022 talking about lateral flows,
a new Chinese variant and removal of all covid safety measures, as if COVID-19 does not exist anymore...
We have had political instability with 3 prime minsters in just under 2 months. With the current prime minister being asked if he had committed the offense of using private healthcare.
I started my last report wishing 2021 was a year we would be talking less about COVID-19. I start this report having a fantasy that all doctors in the UK are treated equally regardless of the sector they work in. We are a minority in the UK but we still have a voice and should have the same respect as our NHS colleagues.
Private GP’s are not automatically extended the same rights as NHS GP’s by the Department of Health and this was made evident when we had to fight for our right to have COVID-19 vaccines when we were not considered front line health workers or have access to PPE during the pandemic.
A new mandatory Medical Examiner System (MES)1 will start from April 2023 and will be a statutory requirement for all general practitioners. Information about the new system (which requires all community deaths to be reported to the system before a death certificate can be issued) was circulated to NHS practices in June 2021 to prepare. In September 2022, it was realised that Private GP’s may have patients that die in the community.... and the IDF was approached. I have been working with
the MES UK leaders to create a pathway for Private GP’s to be implemented in the statutory system. Information has been sent to all IDF GP members.
On the 4th of August, some of our members suffered a cyber ransom
attack on their clinical software system (Crosscare) losing all their patient data. This made it very difficult to look after patients safely with no access to their medical records. We have set up several meetings with our corporate solicitors to help our affected members with obtaining data and claiming for losses incurred. If you have not contacted us and require information about this, please get in touch as soon as possible.
We are continuing to look at benchmarking toolkits for members which will soon be made a compulsory part of CQC inspections. Some pilot schemes have been carried out successfully and we will be sending out more information later this year.
The IDF GP Committee meets regularly and I am very grateful for the invaluable support and expertise of the committee members Dr J Setchell, Dr N Sawyer, Dr M Jiwani, Dr N Haughton,
Dr A Bhandari, Dr A Kumar-Beurg and Dr R Stewart.
2023 will have many challenges ahead for healthcare professionals but we
will continue to support our IDF GP members. It is essential we hear from our members about any concerns they may have so we can offer help where appropriate. Please email any queries, or the support you require, to our admin team so our committee can continue working on your behalf.
12
1. https://www.england.nhs.uk/establishing-medical-examiner-system-nhs/