Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 3rd September 2021
Date sent: Friday 3 September 2021
Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates are available here
- September 2021 South West 'Starting School' Immunisation Campaign
- Inactivated flu vaccine protocol
- Vaccinations for NHS staff entering care homes
- Help NHSX to help you on questions about Covid Pass, NHSApp & GP Online Services
- Records Management Code of Practice 2021
- For action: Change to emails from OOH Adastra
- RSV pathway
- Standards for health and care records - diabetes
- New Community Pharmacy Contract & Hypertension Case Finding
- Resources for helping patients with Osteoarthritis pain awaiting surgery
- Appraisers’ fees
- Support your Surgery: From the BMA Head of Communications
- Funding initiative for educational supervisors training
- Last chance to join our upcoming Action Learning Sets!
- Sessional GPs webinar – contracts
- Job Vacancies
September 2021 South West 'Starting School' Immunisation Campaign: From NHSEI & PHE. At start of the new school year parents across the SW are being urged to check their child is up to date with vaccinations. We wanted you to know about NHSEI’s local campaigns to encourage uptake in the 0-5 age group in September for around a fortnight. It will highlight data published in COVER statistics for the local area. Promotional materials are being drawn from Immunisations: resources for schools - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Send questions to england.swscreeningandimms@nhs.net
Vaccinations for NHS staff entering care homes: New government regulations come into force on 11 November requiring all CQC regulated care home staff to refuse entry to anybody who cannot prove that they have had two doses of COVID-19 vaccine, or that they exempt. NHSEI has issued a letter and FAQs on how this will work. All providers delivering NHS-funded services to a care home will need to have actively supported staff to have their first COVID-19 vaccine by 16 September and to carry out active workforce planning to ensure that only staff who are vaccinated, or exempt, are deployed to enter a care home from 11 November. The FAQs, which will be updated on a regular basis, should be read alongside DHSC operational guidance.
Help NHSX to help you on questions about Covid Pass, NHSApp & GP Online Services: We have been receiving requests from GP staff via our help desks struggling to find the answers they need to direct patients for Covid pass, NHSApp and GP Online Services. As you know there are many guidance tools accessible to frontline staff and they will always remain available and regularly updated. However, we want to provide the most helpful guide for GP staff that will provide answers they require. To get this as accurate as possible we are asking if GP staff can kindly complete this very short survey.
Records Management Code of Practice 2021: NHSX has now published the Records Management Code of Practice 2021 which is important guidance for anyone involved in decisions on keeping health and care records. It provides guidance on what the law says about managing records, how to file and store them and how long they should be kept for.
RSV pathway: The update article last week did not include the pathway for YDH this has now been included here.
Standards for health and care records - diabetes: NHSEI has commissioned the Professional Records Body to develop standards to allow key information about a person with diabetes to be shared between them, their carer and professionals to support self-management and to help them get the best care. There will be consultation between 20th-30th September 2021 to ensure views from professionals and service users across the UK are considered. If you would like to be involved please contact info@theprsb.org
New Community Pharmacy Contract & Hypertension Case Finding: The contract changes for Community Pharmacy for 2021/22 were announced last week. Starting in October, or as soon as possible thereafter, it is expected that Hypertension Case-Finding Service as an advanced service for pharmacies will support the NHS Long Term Plan ambitions for prevention of cardiovascular disease. It will have two stages: first to identify people at risk of hypertension and offering them blood pressure monitoring (clinic check); second to offer ambulatory blood pressure monitoring where indicated. The blood pressure test results will be shared with the patient’s GP to inform a potential diagnosis of hypertension, linking to the PCN service specifications.
Resources for helping patients with Osteoarthritis pain awaiting surgery: With inevitable delays in elective surgery more patients are relying on prescription painkillers for relief but this can bring problems including secondary chronic pain. Dr Jon Dolman, HEE fellow at the Somerset Training Hub, and specialist colleagues have made some resources available for primary care teams available here.
Appraisers’ fees: NHSEI confirmed that the appraisal fee in 2020-21 was £530 (i.e. the 2020 +2.8% applied to the 2019 fee of £515) and the 2021-22 appraisal fee is £546 (i.e. the 2021 +3% applied to £530). The GPC has spotted a discrepancy with the fees quoted by the DDRB and has asked for a correction. NHSEI is calculating and paying arrears for appraisals in the current financial year but this is not complete yet, so GP appraisers will not yet have seen an uplift in any fees since April.
Support your Surgery: From the BMA Head of Communications: Following the launch on 24th August a lot of traffic to the petition has come from sharing the link on social media. BMA has made new materials available here. If you prefer there is a downloadable version of the petition for use in practices. Please email the sheets back to info.gpc@bma.org.uk. We have added QR codes to email signature graphics and a Twibbon is now available for us on social media (this has to be downloaded from the third-party site; the link is on the campaign page [or ask a teenager? BM] ). As well as all of the digital/online content printed posters have been sent to nearly 6000 practices. These should have started arriving this week. It would help if you could send photos of the posters on display for use as a further part of the campaign.
Funding initiative for educational supervisors training: Funding is available from the CCG to reimburse 50% of backfill costs for GPs who sign up with the Somerset GP training scheme and complete the Educational supervisor’s course. Following the success of this initiative earlier this year the CCG is repeating the offer for the next Educational Supervisors training cohort starting in November 2021. This forms part of our endeavour to increase the GP workforce in primary care and in particular to be able to accommodate the expanding numbers of trainee GPs who will need placements in primary care in Somerset.
The time commitment is 6 half days over a period of about 6 weeks. This has been delivered online during the pandemic but it is hoped that there will be a return to face to face sessions at Dillington House for this next cohort. Please email expressions of interest in becoming a GP trainer to Stephen Holmes Stephen.Holmes@hee.nhs.uk
Last chance to join our upcoming Action Learning Sets!: We are currently pulling together Action Learning Sets for a group of Practice Managers and Operational Leads (reception, dispensing etc), and we'd love another couple of people to join each set.
These sets have been really popular in the past, and have created a confidential and safe environment to talk about work based issues you may be struggling with - whether that's dealing with staff, project that you don't know how to take forward, managing workload or more! The group allows you to explore the topic and come up with solutions, supported by other members of the set. The group meets monthly for around 6 months.
If you or a member of your team are interested in joining or would like to find out more, please contact yvonne@astaraconsulting.co.uk - we are hoping to start these from October / November.
Sessional GPs webinar – contracts: A webinar on 21 September, 6.30-8pm, will be about key contract issues for sessional GPs. It will include what to look out for when reading a contract, common pitfalls and what support is available from the BMA. There will also be an update on NHS 111 contracts. Questions can be submitted in advance and there will also be an opportunity to ask questions during the event. Register 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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