Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 27th October 2023
Date sent: Friday 27 October 2023
Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates are available here
- MD Soundbites!
- GPAS (General Practice Alert State)
- Access to Records
- Somerset Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Dashboard 60% of Practices Now Signed Up
- PCSE Seniority Payments Reconciliation Exercise 2023
- Staff Contracts and Handbook (updated)
- The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism
- Next ‘Connecting the Dots’ Meeting, 31st October 2023 1-2 pm via Teams
- Feedback Survey - YDH AEC Surgical Telephone Triage and Referral Pilot Study
- LMC/STH Lunchtime Webinar Hope and Resilience in General Practice Through Releasing Our Team's Potential
- Safe Working in General Practice (BMA) This guidance is regularly updated with new items and suggestions
- Job Vacancies
- Somerset Emotional Wellbeing Podcasts - new this week - How to Sleep Better
Access to Records: The LMC have received links from the BMA that we felt were important to share. The update from the BMA is very useful as the imminent contractual requirements to give patients online access to their prospective records is from the 31st October 2023. Practices are strongly encouraged to complete the DPIA – the BMA’s is here. There are also two template letters - to the ICB and to the ICO if you require them. You can find the full guidance here. For those that have missed the FAQs from the BMA on this topic here they are.
Somerset Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Dashboard: 60% of Practices Now Signed Up: You may have spotted in a recent ICB GP bulletin (9 Oct) a request for engagement for the development of a Somerset CVD dashboard by Somerset Council Public Health team, based on pseudonymised practice-level data. So far, two thirds of practices have signed up already and it is hoped that more practices will follow. Learning from this will guide future public health initiatives that aim to address health inequalities in the county. As data controllers, permission is required from each individual practice to share the required data, which will be pseudonymised during extraction as part of the EMIS Enterprise Search and Reports process and therefore anonymous in context once it leaves the practice. The LMC have been kept informed about the programme and have been reassured by the input from Kevin Caldwell, DPO for many Somerset practices and the ICB, that the necessary information governance processes have been followed and appropriate safeguards are in place. Links to the Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) and Information Sharing Agreement (ISA) prepared by Somerset County Council and NHS Somerset can be found in the GP bulletin. If practices have any questions or concerns, in the first instance, please contact somicb.GPDPO@nhs.net.
PCSE Seniority Payments Reconciliation Exercise 2023: This letter from the BMA summarises the issue regards PCSE Seniority Payments. This may affect your practice so the LMC would advise that you bring this to the attention of your Practice Manager and Accountant.
In essence – seniority payments were made to GP partners based on their length of service in the NHS. Last payments were made in 2020. The actual entitlement to payment was based on the Final Seniority Factor (FSF) and the figures for 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20 have just been published. Practices should be contacted by PCSE and within that letter there is an on-line link to obtain further information. These changes may mean that practices will need to contact colleagues that have left the practice, retired or sadly even beneficiaries of the estate of those who have died.
Staff Contracts and Handbook (updated): Adrian Poole from Apers Ltd has updated the Practice Staff Contract and Practice Staff Handbook for practices. These can be found in the Practice Support Unit (PSU) area of our website. You will need to be logged into the LMC website to access these documents. If you do not currently have a log in for the LMC website, please email the LMC office at somersetlmc.office@nhs.net and we will support you with this.
The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism: The Health and Care Act 2022 introduced a requirement that regulated service providers must ensure their staff receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role. The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism | Health Education England (hee.nhs.uk). The DHSC have set the National training “requirements”, but haven’t officially made the Tiers of training “mandatory” nor funded in GMS. On the other hand, CQC have said that practices will need to demonstrate that all staff have undertaken relevant training relating to Autism and Learning Disability, and to demonstrate how this has been accomplished if the national recommendation has not been followed. The GPC are challenging this, given the implications of ALL tier 2 staff having to attend for full face to face annual training day for part 2 of the training.
The suggested training is subdivided.
- Part 1 training-The e-learning, which is the first part of both Tier 1 and Tier 2 is available now through elearning for healthcare (elfh webpage). It is free to access in the UK.
- Part 2 training-Face to Face one day annual training proposal for Tier 2 staff.
The difficulty we have is
- Providing clear advice on part 2 training, as we are awaiting the outcome of the consultation on the Oliver McGowan draft code of practice on statutory learning disability and autism training - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
- Advising on the timing of the e-learning. HEE advice that Part 2 of The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training (the interactive online and the face-to-face sessions) makes reference to the e-learning package and participants need to recall information from it during part 2 of the training. Ideally part 1 and part 2 will be completed within days of each other. In circumstances where as much as 6 months go past, HEE advice participants to refresh their memory of the e-learning ahead of the interactive or face to face session.
Once we hear back with national clarity, we will update. If there if no national clarity soon, we will create a local agreement with our ICB.
Next ‘Connecting the Dots’ Meeting, 31st October 2023 1-2 pm via Teams: Click here to join the meeting. The Hospital@Home team will be joining us next week to both share progress, but also to hear views from general practice. Is it working for you? Are you being contacted? What are the opportunities to improve the service for your patients? Even if you have never heard of H@H, just come along and listen (even if for a part of it). We also have the paediatric weight management team attending and then it’s a chance to air any issues.
Next month, PC and PCNs will be leading the discussion, and there is much that colleagues in the Trust will be interested to hear about, so I’m looking forward to that.
Also from Jan 2024, we will rotate these meetings through Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to make sure everyone gets the chance to join.
Please try and join next week as the more voices from primary care we have, the better.
Dr Andrea Trill
Medical Director, Integrated and Primary Care
Feedback Survey - YDH AEC Surgical Telephone Triage and Referral Pilot Study: I would be grateful for your feedback on the recent surgical AEC telephone triage and referral pilot, which ran from Monday 18th to Friday 29th September 0800-1800 (excluding weekends). Your feedback as users of the system is of vital importance in driving improvements in our service which are responsive to your needs and of benefit to patients. The form will take 3 minutes of your time and will really help us to strengthen links between Primary and Secondary Care, enabling us to work better together, by streamlining the patient journey. Could you please spare a few minutes of your time to share your experience of the pilot, by completing the survey through this link, prior to 25th November 2023. Thank you for your time.
Miss Emma Court, AEC Triage Surgeon surgicaltriageydh@somersetft.nhs.uk
LMC/STH Lunchtime Webinar Hope and Resilience in General Practice Through Releasing Our Team's Potential: Would you like to be inspired and hear how your team’s potential can be released to provide hope in general practice? Dr Ben Allen is a GP partner in Birley Health Centre, Sheffield. Ben will be joining us to tell us about his work in a webinar hosted by Somerset Training Hub at 1pm on 8th November. By developing a culture of psychological safety and compassionate leadership over several years, Ben’s team have seen significant changes in staff retention, workplace happiness and patient feedback. The work Ben has initiated is pioneering in general practice and is gaining prominence. To book a place on this webinar and view further details please see 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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