Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 23rd November 2018
Date sent: Friday 23 November 2018
Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates are available here
A cup of tea and a biscuit is needed this week.......
- 'The Wrong Trousers' the latest blog from LMC Chairman Dr Nick Bray
- Full Delegation of Commissioning Powers Vote
- Somerset LMC Medical Director Report on GPC Chair Dr Richard Vautrey’s Annual Report to England LMCs Conference Today
- Vaccines for 2019/20 Seasonal Flu Vaccination Programme
- Annual GP practice self declaration
- GP Partnership Review from Dr Nigel Watson
- Transformation: “Making Quality Care Easier” Feedback and Next Steps
- Topics discussed at the Somerset GP Board meeting on 20th November
- GP In Somerset Campaign
- Freestyle Libre News Update
- National Pharmacy NSAID Audit
- Diploma in Advanced Primary Care Management - 50% bursary available staff in ICSs
- GPC News 3 – 20 November 2018
Full Delegation of Commissioning Powers Vote: Somerset CCG will soon be balloting practices to ask whether the CCG should take on fully delegated commissioning responsibilities from NHS England for primary medical services from April 2019. Each practice will have one vote. The LMC has been asked to conduct the ballot and an email with a link to the electronic vote will be sent to the Practice Manager/Senior Partner early next week (please check your junk folder). Somerset LMC opinion: The Executive broadly supports this move. NHSE has undergone internal reorganisations with a resultant distancing of commissioning of Primary Care in Somerset: practices tell us of increasingly difficulties contacting NHSE. Meanwhile we have built good working relationships with the CCG Primary Care Directorate which despite its own financial difficulties and reorganisations does seem to have a better take on the realities of the system. The LMC Executive therefore judges it would be helpful for us to be able to deal directly with commissioners with whom we have good relations and who better understand primary care.
Vaccines for 2019/20 Seasonal Flu Vaccination Programme: This document gives preliminary advice on the vaccines recommended for 2019/20, it does state that practices should now start to order the licensed vaccine.
Annual GP practice self declaration: GP practices are reminded that the 2018/19 GP annual practice declaration (eDEC) is open for submissions until Wednesday, 5 December, 2018. All practices are required to submit their eDEC through the primary care website: https://www.primarycare.nhs.uk/ Access the eDEC here.
GP Partnership Review from Dr Nigel Watson: Dear Colleague, over the last few months the GP Partnership Review has been meeting GPs across the country to listen to the challenges that the profession faces...despite a record number of GP Trainees the number of partners is decreasing. We would like to gain a better understanding of how this affects those in the early, middle or later part of a GP’s career, and also what the potential solutions might be. It would be helpful if you could take 10 minutes to complete this simple survey...to provide us with more evidence to support the recommendations that we intend to make to the Secretary of State and the Chief Executive of the NHS in our final report at the end of the year. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MHVW5GP The survey will close on Monday 3rd December.
Transformation: “Making Quality Care Easier” Feedback and Next Steps: this successful and inspirational study day on 13th November was attended by representatives of every practice in Somerset. The presentations are available on the LMC website (log in needed). You can also see the main presenters on youtube We are developing a survey to gauge the support you think you need in your practices to help establish the next steps. We will also send you concise PowerPoint slides which we advise you to share at a practice meeting to inform discussion with colleagues who were unable to be there.
Topics discussed at the Somerset GP Board meeting on 20th November: A significant part of the meeting was taken up discussing the next actions following last week’s joint LMC/Community Education Provider Network (CEPN) study day to discuss neighbourhoods and transformation of Primary Care. The meeting had generally been well-received by those present, and the Board is keen that momentum is maintained. Almost all practices were represented, and attendees will be receiving a feedback/questionnaire form hopefully next week to help focus on what happens next. We discussed how we could spend some unallocated money from this financial year to achieve visible and obvious quick wins that would help practices at this busy time of year. Workflow training had produced noticeable benefits for many practices.
We will be starting to identify local ‘leaders’ with the assistance of SPH and LMC representatives around the constituencies.
The Urgent Treatment Centre pilots were discussed. We need adequate local GP representation at meetings to set these up and we are writing to the CCG to request backfill. Trust representatives have admin time built into their contracts and it is unreasonable for GPs to have to lose financially to attend.
Our Trust representatives agreed to explore whether lab results arriving in practices can be grouped by patient, rather than all arriving independently.
We formalised the appointment of Dr Martyn Hughes as the CEPN representative on the board (he was dialling in to the meeting from Glasgow!), and discussed how the board will be represented in the most efficient way on the various delivery boards that are now being established to develop the plans arising from the Strategy Review.
We will also be inviting key individuals with specific roles in the establishment of neighbourhoods to join future meetings for the relevant item.
GP In Somerset Campaign: The website has now been expanded to include more information about all aspects of General Practice in Somerset and we would like to capture more photos and testimonials from GPs, Nurses HCA’s Paramedics, Pharmacists and Practice Managers, if you would be happy to be part of this please do e mail jill.hellens@nhs.net also if you run, mountain bike swim or abseil we would like to get take some action shots of these activities for the website so please do get in touch if you are not camera shy https://www.gpinsomerset.com/
Freestyle Libre News Update: HMG has announced that FreeStyle Libre will be funded for suitable type one diabetic patients from April “from growth funding” but without any details. Somerset CCG thinks it could cost the county an additional £500k. Existing CCG prescribing conditions will apply until the end of March in any event.
National Pharmacy NSAID Audit: Community pharmacy is to review again older patients prescribed NSAID excluding low dose aspirin without gastric protection as part of a national safety audit in January. Practices should be prepared for referrals back from pharmacists.
Diploma in Advanced Primary Care Management - 50% bursary available staff in ICSs: Looking to develop the skills to manage primary care at scale? There are still some places left for February 2019 intake for the NAPC’s Diploma in Advanced Primary Care Management. Some bursaries are available including 50% bursary funding for candidates within Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) for February 2019 only. The diploma is designed for practice and business managers who are becoming responsible for running primary care at scale, for example, as a primary care home or other primary care network. For more information please visit here.
Kind Regards
Jill
Jill Hellens
Executive Director
Somerset LMC
Crown Medical Centre, Venture Way, Taunton, TA2 8QY
Tel: (01823) 331 428
Fax: (01823) 338 561
www.somersetlmc.co.uk
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