Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 9th October 2020
Date sent: Friday 9 October 2020
Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates are available here
- Extra CV19 Testing available
- Managing acutely unwell Children in Covid 19 Outbreak
- NHS111 “Direct booking” slots
- Duty of Candour
- Letter to practice Nurses from Paula Messenger LMC Nurse advisor
- Prostate Specific Antigen Testing in Transgender Patients
- Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) Requests
- Famotidine
- Priadel withdrawal paused
- Locum Pension Forms
- Fraudulent CV in Circulation - Practice Nurse
- Partnership Incentive Payment (PIP)
- Resources for communication to patients
- LARC Fitter Forum November 11th
- Office for National Statistics CV19 Survey
- And finally...
Extra CV19 Testing available: The CCG understands the difficulties that some colleagues in practices have had getting a Pillar 2 (or DHSC “public”) CV19 test and so with LMC involvement has negotiated 50 extra daily Pillar 1 “hospital” tests for symptomatic key workers who are “business critical” i.e. cannot work from home. This also includes household members index cases causing the staff member to isolate. As there are some 50,000 key workers in health and social care in the county these 50 have to be reserved for urgent cases. Complete the referral form and email somccgpcovidtestsomerset@nhs.net (also send questions there). If the criteria are met the person will be contacted with an appointment. Ask them to take their ID badge/Smart card. A positive result will be notified by phone, a negative one by text, both usually within 24 hours.
Managing acutely unwell Children in Covid 19 Outbreak: The CCG have recently updated this document and there have been a few changes on how to contact secondary care in each area, full document here and available on the website here.
NHS111 “Direct booking” slots: Richard Vautrey says “NHSEI has listened to our concerns and relaxed the requirement for practices to make appointments available for NHS111 to directly book. The maximum that should be made available remains 1 per 500 patients, but practices can now only make available what is necessary to meet demand. This may therefore be covered by the previous arrangement of 1 per 3000 patients. We are aware that most practices do not see many of the slots available being booked into, so practices can now reduce this and only make available what they believe is required. Practices should monitor this to ensure they are offering sufficient opportunity for direct booking.”
Duty of Candour: We have seen the first prosecution of an NHS provider by the CQC for failing to undertake duty of candour, something it takes very seriously. The case concerned a hospital trust in the South of England but the CCG complaints team is supporting one practice in Somerset after the CQC highlighted their complaints responses did not hit the mark for duty of openness and apologising. Full report here.
Prostate Specific Antigen Testing in Transgender Patients: At present Ordercomms does not allow a PSA to be requested in someone with female demographic information. When this is required, request a “DRJ-SST” via the search facility and include the test and clinical information in the clinical details area.
Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) Requests: Dr David James of SPS writes, “There are potential national supply problems with one of our reagents which could affect our ability to perform NT-proBNP testing. Should we be unable to perform the tests we will remove it from Ordercomms. Please be circumspect in your use of the this test for the rest of October.”
Famotidine: Word is that, although Cimetidine and Nizatidine will remain out of stock until the New Year, Famotidine 20 & 40mg tablets are back. We advise you not to tell anyone though...
Priadel withdrawal paused: A few weeks ago we reported that the maker of this brand of Lithium was stopping production next year. We are happy to pass on Shaun Green’s report that, in response to the start of a CMA review, the manufacturer has paused the decision for now to enable discussions to take place.
Locum Pension Forms: Jayne Mills at the Taunton GP Locum Agency tells us that some pension forms are not processed by Capita owing to poor quality of the images. Please could practices make sure that the resolution for scanning and printing can produce an image that allows the reader to read dates. Also NHS Employing Authority codes are required with a practice stamp. This will be hugely appreciated by sessional colleagues.
Fraudulent CV in Circulation - Practice Nurse: Neighbouring LMCs have made us aware of an individual impersonating an employed practice nurse colleague within their county and forwarding a cloned CV to practices. It seems that this impersonator is now operating in several areas. Practices have recently received a CV from the email address nursekarenamies@outlook.com, for which is considered to be a fake account. This matter has been reported to the Police by the practice and the victim involved. We would urge practice staff to remain vigilant and report back to the LMC if you have received any contact
Partnership Incentive Payment (PIP): NHSEI guidance clearly states that to be eligible for the £20k a new GP partner must not have been a partner before somewhere else and must hold a profit share in a legally liable partnership. Experience in other counties has shown that a GP who joins a partnership on a fixed payment during an introductory period of mutual assessment will NOT be eligible for the PIP. GPC colleagues fear that failure to understand this will permanently disqualify some GPs as NHSEI tends to interpret regulations... inflexibly.
Resources for communication to patients: These are now available on the LMC website in JPEG format.
LARC Fitter Forum November 11th: For those of you unable to attend the recent LARC fitters forum, a further online event has been organised by public health, full detail here.
Office for National Statistics CV19 Survey: Practices are getting results for patients who are taking part in the ONS/University of Oxford CV19 infection survey. We regret that these are coming on paper but have been reassured by GPC that any positive tests will have been acted upon and so practices need not take any notice of the statement about referring to Test & Trace.
And finally...
“You can make an appointment to see a dentist but not a GP!” is something we have heard more than once from beleaguered PMs berated by angry patients who may or may not be Daily Telegraph readers. The Local Dental Committee tells us this is not true: all callers have to be triaged before deciding whether they will get an appointment. CV19 operating requirements make it impossible for everyone who wants or even needs a F2F dental appointment to be seen. This is threatening the financial viability of some practices to say nothing of the nation’s teeth.
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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