New chair of BMA GP committee elected

Clare Bannon/BMA

By Daniel Pye

A new chair of the British Medical Association’s general practitioners committee for England has been elected.

Barnsley GP Dr Clare Bannon will start her new role from Thursday 9 July, taking over from Dr Katie Bramall who has held the position since 2023.

Since 2010 Bannon has held a variety of roles in the area’s clinical commissioning group, integrated care boards and local medical committee.

Joining the GP committee in 2021, Bannon has served as deputy chair and policy lead for both clinical and prescribing, and practice business.

She has led on national work for prescribing Covid therapeutics and recently led work exploring alternatives to GP-issued fit notes to reduce unnecessary workload. 

Bannon said she remained ready to ballot the profession and proceed with further action if another “unacceptable” general medical services contract is imposed.

Since May, GPs have taken collective action over a contract dispute – the BMA has said the government imposed extra workload on doctors in the form of unlimited urgent care demand without giving them the resource to meet it.