Industrial Action – Primary Care comms

Circulation List: NEL GP Practices, NEL Place Based Primary Care Leads & NEL Primary Care Central Team

On behalf of NHS England

Dear colleague 

We emailed regarding arrangements or measures that could be put into place at practice, PCN and Federation level ahead of industrial action by London ambulance staff in December 2022. We are reissuing it ahead of further planned action this month on 11 January 2023 (11am to 11pm) with more planned for 23 January.

These arrangements are intended to act as a guide as we prepare to work through challenging situations and support the overall management of patient care across the system before and after the strike actions days.

Taking into account that it might also take time for some services to return to normal. Please note as a system we have put in additional capacity to support the front door and emergency care and in the community, working with our partners in NEL.

Although we are expecting general practice to operate as normal during strike action days we are also aware of the sustained additional daily demands that are made upon general practice and that this is likely to be exacerbated by the industrial action. In addition it important to note that arranging ambulance transport for sick patients who are see in the practice will also be very disrupted. With this in mind you may wish to consider the following points to use as a guide to help with your local planning.  

1. As you do throughout the year, report by exception to your local primary care team any practice issues which may impact your ability to run as normal e.g. workforce issues such as sickness. Also we are aware that a number of PCNs have LAS paramedic staff working with them which might also impact upon patient care and access.
2. Continue to make your 111 slots available ensuring there is late morning and afternoon utilisation.
3. Prioritise calls coming from paramedics when they are on site with patients (or the cover in place for that day).
4. Checking on care homes and proactively managing high risk patients on the days leading up to and after the strike action time.
5. Supporting same day access by making available any un-utilised appointments within your Enhanced Access sites (which are ordinarily used for routine care).
6. Consider supporting ARRS staff who would like to make themselves available to volunteer.
7. Please be aware / inform your teams of possible additional request for home visits from patients.
8. Please encourage your teams to use appropriate pathways when emergency care is needed to improve our patients experience if possible.

Local providers from across the system are also going to communicate information about the arrangements they are intending to put into place to support capacity within the system. We will make this available to you and place on our GP intranet site.

We understand the significant impact these added pressures have had on you and your teams. Please consider your wellbeing and that of your teams and let us know if there is anything else we can do to support you.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for the incredible work of primary care both now and during the pandemic.

Kind regards,

Dr Paul Gilluley
Chief Medical Officer
NHS North East London

Dr Mark Rickets
GP and clinical lead for primary care
NHS North East London

Dr Jagan John
GP and board member
NHS North East London