In October 2009 the former Gwent NHS Healthcare Trust and five Local Health Boards were merged to form the Aneurin Bevan Local Health Board, now known as Aneurin Bevan University Health Board. This is the organisation which is responsible for providing both hospital services and primary care to the people of the five boroughs of Gwent (Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen).

Gwent LMC is the statutory body that represents General Practice and General Practitioners at discussions within the health board to try and ensure that no decisions are made about us without us. We represent all GPs locally whether or not they are LMC members.

Our representatives are drawn from each of the five locality areas, and from a further constituency of sessional GPs and GP registrars. Members are elected to committee for a three year term (the next elections are due in 2027, and any GP on the performer’s list within ABUHB who is interested is eligible to stand). Following these elections, the committee will then elect an executive team to serve for the same three-year term. Members with particular interests or expertise may also be co-opted on to the committee following an invitation and a vote.

The LMC is funded from a levy of local GP practices based on their list size. If you work in a practice within ABUHB, whether as a partner or as a salaried GP you are a member.

What is the LMC?

What sorts of things do we do?

  • We hold monthly virtual meetings (except in August) where we will discuss current issues faced by our members in their day to day practice, as well as hosting consultations with the health board and secondary care when they have a proposal to put to or a request to make of general practice

  • We send representatives to regular health board meetings, including the Medicines and Therapeutics Committee where formulary decisions are made, the Enhanced Services Operations Group where specifications for enhanced services are discussed, the Urgent Care and Mental Health Interface Groups

  • We provide guidance and support to local GPs relating to the Unified and Supplementary Services Contracts

  • We liaise with consultant and secondary colleagues to try and resolve issues at the primary-secondary care interface

  • We send representatives each year to the Welsh Conference of LMCs - the outcomes of conference directly influence the negotiating priorities of GPC Wales in their discussions with Welsh Government and is how we get our voices heard during these negotiations

  • We provide help and support to individual GPs (whatever their employment status) with any issues relevant to general practice such as employment issues, partnership issues, performance issues and complaints, premises issues

Meet The Executive

Natasha is currently a GP partner in Usk, Monmouthshire. She has served on LMC since 2014 and has been Chair since 2022. Natasha is also a member of GPC Wales and is very passionate about Welsh General Practice.

Natasha has lots of special interests within the field of General Practice. She enjoys spending time with her husband and three sporty boys and you will usually find her sat on the side of a cricket pitch or stood on the side of a football pitch. In her spare time she enjoys spending time in her garden looking after her fruit, veg and flowers.

Dr Natasha Collins - Chair

Jon grew up in Cornwall and trained in Cardiff, graduating in 2005 and completing Foundation Programme training in Wrexham and Swansea.  Having always wanted to do general practice, he went back to Cornwall for VTS and obtained MRCGP in 2010.  Following a period of locum and salaried work, he became a partner in his training practice on the Roseland Peninsula where he spent 10 happy years practising and becoming a trainer and appraiser.  Relocating to Mid Wales in 2021 for family reasons, he is now a partner in Old Station Surgery in Abergavenny.  He believes that general practice has the potential to be the best job in medicine if only we had the time and resources to do it properly, and joined LMC in 2022 to try and do his part in supporting his colleagues to that end.

Outside work, if he isn’t ferrying his children to and from their various activities he is generally to be found with a guitar in hand or getting beaten up by his son in their karate classes.

Dr Jonathan Jacoby - Vice Chair

Dr Sue Fairweather - Medical Secretary

Area Representatives

  • Blaenau Gwent - 3 seats

    Dr Heather Butterworth

    Dr Krishan Syal

  • Caerphilly - 7 seats

    Dr Danielle Reed

    Dr Bethan Scourfield

  • Monmouthshire - 4 seats

    Dr Rowena Christmas

    Dr Susan Fairweather

    Dr Andrew Thomas

    Dr Jamie Watson

  • Newport - 6 seats

    Dr Alex Ding

    Dr Brenda Ferrao

    Dr Eleri Jones

  • Torfaen - 4 seats

    Dr Gareth Oelmann

  • Sessional GPs

    Dr Natasha Collins

    Dr Jonathan Jacoby

  • Co-Opted Members

    Dr David Bailey

    Dr Dee Clark

  • GPs In Training

    Dr Naman Arora