There also appears to be a bit of a mismatch in joined up thinking between TC and EGLL as well.
Not really.
We tell the tower what sort of problem the inbound a/c has, if any special handling is reported as being required and whether it's declared a PAN or MAYDAY and the tower tell us what sort of gap they want in front and behind.
What the tower then do themselves with respect to Local Standby, Full Emergency etc is pretty much transparent to TC and they won't necessarily, nor need, tell us. We (TC) are just interested in the gaps in front and behind, whether we can use the other runway in the interim and then when we can go back to dual runway ops after the subject a/c has landed, assuming all is okay.