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Many in general practice may be unaware of the existence of the General Practice Committee, a recognised body which exists to represent all GPs in the UK, regardless of whether they are BMA members or not, and which is split into national groups of elected members who attend and speak on behalf their local constituent GPs. This week GP, mediator and former GPC member Dr Clare Sieber returns to the podcast to fill us in on the work of the GPC, its role, and objectives, and details her experiences of the committee and why she believes radical change within primary care and how the workforce are represented is required.

Introduction (0:09)

Getting involved with the GPC (0:27)

How does the GPC work? (1:49)

Links to the LMCs (3:14)

The role of the GPC and their main objectives (3:50)

The mandate for industrial action (4:45)

What happened after the motion for strike action was passed? (5:39)

Contractual negotiations with NHS England (6:54)

Resignation from the committee (7:55)

The negotiation process (8:27)

Attempting to bring about change (9:53) Issues with maintaining open communication and transparency (111:42)

What’s Clare’s sense of where General Practice is right now? (12:25)

Moving forwards from here (13:57)

Ensuring effective communication within the ICS new world (14:49)

How does general practice come together, and stand together? (15:35)

To learn more about what Clare can offer as a mediator, check out her LinkedIn profile here

The General Practice Mediation website is also here

To get in touch, Clare is contactable here

To find out more information about our PCN Plus training programme, focused on supporting and skilling PCN Clinical Directors to be successful in their roles, check out our dedicated webpage or get in touch with Ben here