Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 20th October 2017
Date sent: Friday 20 October 2017
Sent to all Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and previous updates are available here
- PREVENT Training
- Transgender patients and aortic aneurysm screening
- Childhood Imms
- Private Services Offered by Your Practice
- Indemnity
- SPH - Phase II NHS Pilot Pharmacists in Practice- Last call for practices to participate (deadline Monday 30 October) - link
- NHS England Update on Flu Immunisation for Care Home Workers, message from Dr Julie Yates
- LMC/CCG Workforce survey extended deadline 27th October
PREVENT training GPC confirmed that it is not compulsory for GPs to attend Prevent training and therefore practices won’t be in breach of their contract if they answer no to this question on the recent e declaration. Please see article for further information
Transgender patients and aortic aneurysm screening Practices will be aware of the requirement made upon them to arrange cervical smears for transgender patients still in possession of a cervix who wish to take part in the screening programme. Aortic aneurysm screening is offered to all men in the year they turn 65 but men who have transitioned to female gender will not be automatically invited. Practices will be interested to learn that patients who wish to take advantage of the screening can register themselves at Link
Childhood Imms Child Health have in the past and recently asked practices to complete an immunisation pre printed form on Child flu data and to submit this weekly, having spoken to Carole Stringer they are happy for practices to send an electronic report from the practices records via secure e mail.
Private Services Offered by Your Practice Would you like these more widely known about? The LMC is proposing to set up a directory of private services offered by Somerset practices, including both those available direct to the public and also those requiring GP referral.
We are thinking about services such as minor surgery, yellow fever immunisation, varicose vein injections, ear micro-suction and so on.
Please let us know if you are offering any of these, or anything similar, and would like them included. Please can you make it clear whether a service is open access or by referral only. Please send this information to lmcoffice@somersetlmc.nhs.uk
Secretary of State’s Announcement on Indemnity We have to date had very little information about this, other than that discussions with interested parties, including the current MDOs will continue.
Indemnity will be provider based, so presumably it will be arranged through practices rather individuals. We know anyone working under contract to the provider will be included , and this should include sessional GPs as well as salaried doctors. Only NHS work is covered, and this is likely to be purely an indemnity arrangement so it will include none of the other services provided by the MDOs such as medicolegal help, representation at GMC and Performers List Panels, advice on difficult decisions relating to patients and so on. Currently membership of an MDO with no indemnity cover costs something like £1200 to £1500 a year but presumably all this will be reviewed.
At least one MDO has already circulated its members about transitional arrangements, but since we have no details about the national scheme and no definite timetable for its implementation, the LMC advises that you should continue with your existing cover arrangements for now.
NHS England Update on Flu Immunisation for Care Home Workers by Dr Julie Yates NHSE A number of you have contacted us wanting to know more about the last week’s announcement around NHS expanding the flu vaccination programme to offer free vaccination to care staff employed in residential care or nursing homes and those paid to deliver home care, for the 2017-18 season.
There is little more that we can say at the moment – the operational arrangements for delivering this service are currently being worked up by the national team(s) and it is likely to take a couple of weeks until we have further details and associated processes to implement the proposed changes, including contractual and governance processes, including new specifications, PGDs, etc.
Delivery will be through GP practices and community pharmacy and conversations are underway with the GPC and PSNC.
PHE are supporting the development of the data collections for this group and the use of Pharmoutcomes and/or end of season questionnaires. This requires identification of accurate cohort, READ codes etc which is being considered.
NHS England is developing a communications plan that will support the roll out of this additional cohort and will be producing guidance and a FAQ document. There is currently no concern over vaccine stock for this expansion to the flu programme.
We will contact you with more details as soon as those are available. Dr Julie Yates, PHE / NHS England South (South West)
LMC/CCG Workforce Survey Thank you to the 46 practice managers who have managed to find the time to complete this short questionnaire on SurveyMonkey about the current and projected workforce needs of Somerset primary care.
The information that we can collect from this is critically important in determining how and where we focus our workforce strategy, which will sit alongside current and planned initiatives such as the GP in Somerset programme, the GP Career Plus project on retention (incidentally, the Somerset version of this was mentioned by Jeremy Hunt as a success story in his RCGP speech ) and participation in the NHSE international GP recruitment plans.
In case you haven’t had a chance to look at the survey but could possible do so in the next few days (one reply per practice) we’ve extended the deadline until next Friday 27th October. Every contribution is important in building up a complete picture.
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
