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Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 18th September 2015

Date sent: Friday 18 September 2015

Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers                                  This and Previous Updates can be found here

Translator Software for Medicines Labelling; Translabel  is a very nifty bit of software for translating some basic  instructions  to patients about how to take their medicines. It is free to use and although primarily designed for printing labels, the translations will  be useful for prescribing GPs as well as dispensing practices. http://translabel.co.uk/index.asp

Superannuation and Out of Hours Work GPs wishing to do out of hours work for SDUC  have been offered two options. You can either become an employee, in which case you remain in the NHS pension scheme with  SDUC paying  the 14% employer contribution. Alternatively, you can choose to  work as  an independent contractor and  receive payment without the  employee contribution deduction being made.

Under most circumstances GPs have to ensure that all  payments for NHS work are  declared and the correct  superannuation payments  made each year.  However,  because they now provide  many different  services,  SDUC’s parent company, Vocare, has recently changed its status with the NHS Pension Agency from “Out of Hours Provider” to “Independent Provider”.

Lentells, the LMC accountancy advisors,  has confirmed that the  pension rules for Independent Providers  (http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/Documents/Pensions/IP_Guide-20150407-(V5).pdf ) specifically say that freelance GPs  (i.e. any who do not have an employment contract) cannot treat their  income from working independent contractor sessions for an IP as superannuable, so if you choose to take this option these earnings will NOT be pensionable.

This is a complex area and we strongly recommend that you take  advice from your accountant before making any  decisions.

Transfer of patient blood, kidney and urine monitoring to Somerset patients of kidney transplant recipients You may get a request from the above service to take on quarterly BP, urine and blood monitoring of these patients who will then be telephoned from the centre and only be reviewed face to face annually.  I have today written to the service saying that I will be advising constituents to decline to do this until commissioning arrangements have been arranged to enable us to take on this work in Primary Care.  We have several concerns about this proposal – not least that RD&E have raised expectations that we will agree,  without consultation and also that it involves bringing patients back to the surgery to get printed copies of results since the hospital will clearly not be able to access Somerset IT systems direct.

CQC Top Tips: we thought it would interesting to share what the CQC teams were particulatly impressed with on recent visits to practices in  Somerset

Somerset LMC County Meetings: if any GPs would be interested to attend one of the 6 weekly county meetings of the LMC to see what goes on behind the scenes of the full committee please do get in touch with the office  and we can forward the dates lmcoffice@somersetlmc.nhs.uk, these are held at Taunton Racecourse on a Thursday afternoons 2-5

LMC Locum Pack The Locums would like to say a big thank you to all practices that are using the LMC Locum Pack, this was designed for a locum to work efficiently and happily without unnecessary interruptions and waste of valuable practice staff/doctor time.

Vaccine Update 233: A special edition of Vaccine Update about the availability of the BCG vaccine, the efficient administration and prioritisation of the BCG vaccine.

 

Kind Regards

Jill

 

Jill Hellens

Executive Director

Somerset LMC

TEL: 01823 331428

Fax:01823 338561

www.somersetlmc.co.uk

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