Somerset LMC weekly Update Friday 19 May
Date sent: Friday 19 May 2017
Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates are available here
- Team GP - creating a United Primary Care Voice - a message from Dr Rosie Benneyworth
- Somerset School Entry Hearing Screening programme ends July 2017
- Vaccine Update Issue - EIW Special edition 262 - April 2017
- Police "County Lines"
- ELCPAD follow-up - emotional and practical support for GPs caring for dying patients in the community
- RCGP’s Scientific Foundation Board is now open for applications for grants of up to £20,000 for primary care research
Team GP - creating a United Primary Care Voice - a message from Dr Rosie Benneyworth I have now been working with the Somerset STP for 3 months, and during that time the need for us to create a united primary care voice has become increasingly urgent. At the moment, the partners in the STP (YDH, T+S, SomPar, SCC, SCCG and Primary Care) are working on a large number of work streams to meet the ‘triple aims’ of the STP - improving health and wellbeing, improving the quality of care, and ensuring efficiency both in terms of finance and workforce. Full message here
Somerset School Entry Hearing Screening programme ends July 2017 For many years primary school children in the county have had an “entry” screening hearing test to detect significant hearing loss. In practice, this has usually been done in year one or two rather than in the reception year, so most children with a problem have already been noticed by the teacher before screening. Recent evidence considered by NICE showed that an area without a school hearing screening programme detected the same proportion of children with permanent hearing impairment as an area with a school hearing screening programme. In the area without the screening programme, the impairments were actually picked up an average of 6 months earlier. Furthermore, since 2006, babies’ hearing has been screened shortly after birth, and in Somerset 98% of newborns have their hearing checked this way. It is estimated that school screening would now detect 1-2 children per reception cohort in a population the size of Somerset.
The screening programme did refer children directly to Audiology, and there has been a tendency for schools and health staff to wait for the screening test if there was a concern. In future the advice for all children will be the same: a period of watchful waiting to see if the problem resolves itself before suggesting that parents take their child to the GP practice. Reminder information is being circulated to schools about symptoms and behaviour suggestive of a hearing problem, but currently the number of children aged 3-7 referred by GPs to audiology only about 1-2 per GP per year, so we expect the impact on practices to be modest.
Police “County Lines” Police forces across the county are co-operating on breaking a new l type of drug ring. They have found evidence of systematic and possibly widespread schemes that recruit vulnerable young people and adults to carry drugs around the country. These couriers are accommodated as “cuckoos” in the homes of other vulnerable or intimidated people before returning to their cities of origin. There have certainly been cases of this in Somerset , so particularly if a vulnerable family, perhaps a single mother, appears to be getting a number of apparently random visitors – who may be young teenagers – please be aware of this possibility.
ELCPAD follow-up - emotional and practical support for GPs caring for dying patients in the community Dr Anthea Mowat, Chair of the BMA’s representative body, to draw your attention to some work we undertook recently exploring the experiences, views, and perceptions of doctors and the public on end-of-life care and some aspects of physician-assisted dying. Link to full article
RCGP’s Scientific Foundation Board is now open for applications for grants of up to £20,000 for primary care research Any GP, primary healthcare professional or university-based researcher may apply for a grant for scientific research to be undertaken in the UK. High priority is given to applications from new researchers who have not previously been funded or pilot studies and short term studies lasting up to about 18 months.
Deadline for applications: 31 July 2017, 12:00 noon. For more information please visit the RCGP website : or contact us by email SFB@rcgp.org.uk or telephone 020 3188 7594. For further information please contact: Karen Taylor, Head of Patient Safety
Best wishes
Jill
Jill Hellens
Executive Director
Somerset LMC
Crown Medical Centre, Venture Way, Taunton, TA2 8QY
Tel: (01823) 331 428
Fax: (01823) 338 561
