Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 19th June 2020
Date sent: Friday 19 June 2020
Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates are available here
SGPET Covid weekly update with all online education can be found here
- General Practices' Alert State
- Somerset Safehouse
- Somerset Pastoral Care Cell - Emotional Wellbeing and survey 2
- Resetting General Practice in the time of COVID-19
- Hospital staff CV19 Antibody test results
- New arrangements for Diabetes Structured Education During Covid 19
- Care Home Resident Coding
- Referral to treatment (RTT) and re-referral
- Long Acting Reversible Contraception
- Booking courses and events
- If you see or hear racism - speak up
- Zoomed Out? Advice from Dr Andrew Tressider
- SEW Podcast - Episode 3 - Adapting to Change (The New Normal)
- And Finally...
General Practices' Alert State: Somerset LMC’s assessment of General Practices’ Alert State for the period 12th June - Friday 19th June . You can follow this link for a more detailed assessment and an explanation of the General Practice Alert State system.
The survey for this week is now open until Monday 15th at 7pm.
Somerset Safehouse: Has had an update to many areas of advice support and guidance available and now includes an area for Practices nurses, find out more about the changes made on the welcome page we are in the process of identifying advocates for the practice Nurse secure area: as soon as these are in place passwords will be sent to all Nurses.
Hospital staff CV19 Antibody test results: These are now coming through to practices where staff are registered as patients as the Trust staff testing systems get underway. No action by GPs is required and all results are communicated directly to staff. Please note that as primary care did not order these tests you may find you have lots in the unmatched results box in Pathlinks.
In addition practices referring to YDH can request to have an automated report of PCR Swab positive patients sent daily.
New arrangements for Diabetes Structured Education During Covid 19: As a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic all face to face diabetes structured education has been postponed. This flier gives details of current arrangements for Paediatric and adult type 1 and adult type 2 diabetes which are all delivered online.All these education programmes are accredited. GPs can still refer for DESMOND as normal but the patients will be waiting a significant length of time for a course until social distancing is worked out. The My Diabetes My Way platform also allows patients to self- manage and set goals.
If anyone would like further details, or promotional material for My Diabetes My Way contact Rachael.rowe@nhs.net.We also have a demo of new pathways on Microsoft Teams on 22 June (email Rachael.rowe@nhs.net for a link).
Care Home Resident Coding: Home Resident Coding: Shaun Green writes, “Please could I ask you to ensure that all care home residents are coded as per the instructions sent out in last week’s LMC weekly bulletin. I’m told that the best way to find the list is to identify one patient at a home then click “other residents at this address”. This should give you a fairly good idea of the population.”
Referral to treatment (RTT) and re-referral: Some patients are declining a hospital procedure for COVID reasons and this is leading to concerns that they would they be discharged to primary care. In response, NHSE/I has referred to their document Referral to treatment measurement and COVID-19, which states: “If a patient cancels, rearranges or postpones their appointment, this has no effect on the RTT clock, which should continue to tick. Patients should not be discharged back to their GP simply because they have cancelled or rearranged appointments; this should always be a clinical decision, based on the individual patient’s best clinical interest.” Somerset LMC has had no reports of patients being returned to GP care for this reason but wants to hear from you if you know different.
Long Acting Reversible Contraception: Practices will have received an email from Somerset County Council regarding payments for LARC services. The LMC was very disappointed with the planned reduction in funding for Q1 payments by 20% based on previous activities. This is not in keeping with NHSE wishes to ensure General Practice is supported during the current circumstances and may significantly impact on our ability to deliver these services in the future. We are currently discussing this with our SCC colleagues.
Booking courses and events: Polite reminder - Please could we ask if any of your team wish to book onto an event/course that they book it themselves. The reason for the request is that when a confirmation, reminder or cancellation email comes out from us and the manager or the person who booked for the team member is away the person actually attending the event/course won’t be notified.
If you see or hear racism - speak up: The recent events in the USA were truly shocking and have caused unrest across the world. Those involved will answer for their actions. However it is unsurprising that colleagues may ask what we can do here to make a difference. The LMC is sometimes asked for advice about what to do when patients make racist comments or request not to see a particular clinician on ethnic grounds. These comments should not be allowed to pass unchallenged: they are unacceptable. We recommend practices should have a policy on how to proceed. Practices should take this opportunity to share their policy on addressing racism with their patients. This should be embedded in training and staff recruitment.
The LMC welcomes GPs from all backgrounds. We are particularly keen to hear from underrepresented groups.
SEW Podcast - Episode 3 - Adapting to Change (The New Normal): In this episode, our hosts Dr. Andrew Tresidder and Dr. Peter Bagshaw use their expertise to discuss how we adapt to change as we enter the new normal.
During the conversation, they cover why we feel stressed when things change, breathing exercises that can help us cope, how adapting to change involves adjusting to feelings of loss and much more as they dig deep into their experience as doctors and their own lives to share their expert insight.
The next episode of SEW, Spirituality and Wellbeing, will be available to listen to free from the 23rd of June 2020 through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Google Podcasts, or whichever platform you listen to Podcasts.
And Finally...
Phrase of the week “Standard Operating Procedure.” SOPs are the “new normal” in the NHS. One committee member defined a real SOP as, “a good way of doing something, standardised by being rehearsed and practised by those doing the real work. It is not an imposed procedure devised by a committee or small group of enthusiasts.” Another found the definition of SOP to be “n. a thing of no great value given or done as a concession to appease someone whose main concerns or demands are not being met.”
It can also be a piece of bread dipped in gravy, juice or sauce.
Next week’s phrase: NEW NORMAL.
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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