Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 9th October 2015
Date sent: Friday 9 October 2015
All Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates can be found here
- DSQS Update for dispensing Practices only
- Payments for Pneumococcal Vaccine and HIB / Men C Booster Vaccine (NHS England Special bulletin)
- Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening - Continuing Success
- Flu Immunisation in Community Pharmacy
- Dr Chaand Nagpuls Letter to the profession
DSQS Update we have now received the following statement from NHS England We are aware that the 2015/2016 DSQS Tranche 1 submission deadline and paperwork has caused some concern to dispensing practices in Somerset. The issuing of the paperwork, and deadline for submission, were brought forward this year to enable us to review submissions in a timely manner and offer support to practices, if necessary, to help them achieve the 2015/2016 DSQS. We will review the assessment paperwork/suggested submission dates and update you about 2015/2016 DSQS as soon as possible.
Payments for Pneumococcal Vaccine and HIB / Men C Booster Vaccine NHS England special bulletin Practices will have received an e mail with instructions and an EMIS Web XML file to run searches for completing claim forms for Pneumococcal Vaccine and Hib/Men C booster, these were tested in two practices and the following concerns were fed back to the Area Team before this release.
As the date range used is in Quarters it will mean these searches will not pick up Q1 for 15/16 or Q4 for 14/15 which practices still haven’t claimed for as are still awaiting instructions. Practices will need to run the searches with a relative date of 1.7.15 to capture Q1 and 1.4.15 for Q4 data.
We have raised this again with the Area team and would strongly advise that practices use the work around in bold above or carry out their own searches until this is resolved.
Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening - Continuing Success The Somerset and North Devon (SaND) AAA screening programme has been running since 2011, offering all men screening during their 65th year. The Somerset service is almost entirely offered out of GP practices, and last year SaND had the highest uptake in the country.
The programme scans between 500 and 600 men a year , in 2013-14 it picked up 76 aneurysms , in 2014-15, 66, and so far this year, 25. Interestingly the local detection at 1.5% rate is lower than the original national MASS trial which was 4%.
The scanning technicians regularly report incidental findings back to practices, including renal tract malignancy, and in some cases they refer other vascular pathology, such as iliac aneurysms, directly into the hospital vascular service. The programme has an exceptionally low “non-visualised rate” of 0.6%, which is remarkable considering the increasing BMI of the screened population.
The programme is now actively encouraging GP practices to advise men over 65 who have not been screened to make a self-referral, particularly if they have any of the risk factors of smoking, hypertension, or a first degree family history. Men do not need to know their NHS number as an address, DoB and GP surgery will suffice,
Posters and leaflets for practices to display, and some small business cards for staff to give to anyone interested in screening, can be obtained by contacting the programme. They are also very happy to speak at educational days and patient meetings
The contact number for both self-referral and practice information is 01823 344567
Alternatively practices can email to Somerset.andnorthdevonaaa@nhs.net
Flu Immunisation in Community Pharmacy Based on previous experience the LMC and the LPC hope that the extension of flu immunisation to community pharmacies will lead to more “at risk” patients receiving immunisation and both believe that the bulk of immunisations will continue to be provided by GP practices.
The national specification under which Pharmacies are able to offer NHS ‘flu immunisation does not include a requirement for a pharmacy to provide details of the immunisation, such as the batch number, when notifying practices that a ‘flu jab has been given. If a recall was to occur, the pharmacies would be notified of this and have the details of vaccination on record to provide a list of affected patients or to contact the patients themselves.
There is also no restriction on how far pharmacies can go in promoting the service to patients, though we suspect that most will be offering immunisation opportunistically. If you are concerned that a community pharmacy may be causing confusion or seriously disrupting your own immunisation programme, please in the first instance talk to the pharmacy to find a locally agreed resolution. If a resolution cannot be reached locally, please feel free to get in touch with the LMC so we can discuss with our LPC colleagues.
Kind Regards
Jill
Jill Hellens
Executive Director
Somerset LMC
TEL: 01823 331428
Fax:01823 338561
www.somersetlmc.co.uk
