Somerset LMC Weekly Update Friday 16th March 2018
Date sent: Friday 16 March 2018
All Somerset GPs and Practice Managers This and Previous updates can be found here and on our App
Please get a cup of tea and biscuit ready lots to report this week!
- Snowflakes and Heroes The Latest Blog From LMC Chairman Dr Nick Bray
- E Referrals and Urgent Care
- New OOH Provider
- LARC
- A word from the Cytology Lab
- EMIS Health Analytics
- Increase in Syphilis in Devon and Somerset: Briefing for primary and secondary care (There is currently an outbreak in East Devon)
- Sessional GP Newsletter March
- 2018 LMC Conference News
- Adoption Process
- Free GP Online training course for Antiphospholipid Syndrome
- Richmond Group GP questionnaire on social prescribing in Somerset
E Referrals Urgent Care E-referrals and urgent care. Practices are reporting difficulties with some urgent care services, for example the Eye Casualty at T&S hospital, declining to accept acute (same or next day referrals) unless they are made electronically. We have been categorically assured by the CCG that this is unacceptable, not what the move to e-referral was supposed to mean, and that such a stance can only increase referrals to A&E.
New OOH Provider We welcome the news that Devon Doctors has been awarded the interim contract for OOH in Somerset and recognise that an effective and efficient OOH and 111 service is absolutely vital to the smooth running of in-hours Primary Care, as well as the wider health system. We expect that DD’s will be contacting practices and doctors working in the OOH service very soon regarding their plans for the future of the service.
LARC Following on from our earlier email regarding Somerset County Council’s letter requesting expressions of interest for provision of LARC services you may find the following letter useful to include with your reply.
Dear Somerset County Council,
We would like to express our interest as a practice to provide LARC. We understand discussions are still ongoing regarding proposed payments for this service with Somerset LMC and our final response will be dependent on the outcome of this.
Yours sincerely,
Practice Manager
A word from the Cytology Lab The cytology lab is experiencing the cyclical “Goodie” effect typified by an upswing in screening workload this quarter. This has led to a significant increase in the turnaround time at present.
The lab is processing samples as swiftly as is possible consistent with maintaining the quality of the reports.
There have been a few incidences of practices giving patients the direct phone number for the cytology laboratory, and we would ask that this does not happen. We are happy to take queries from practice staff, but it is not appropriate for the cytology screening staff to be dealing with direct patient queries, and it does distract them from processing the samples received. Your assistance in this would be greatly appreciated.Dr David James SPS Clinical Director
EMIS Health Analytics has been purchased for Somerset General Practice use through funding awarded as part of the Estates and Technology Transformation Fund. Initial use is proposed to replace the manual RISC stratification extract currently via MiQuest to SCW CSU from March 2018.
Additional information will be circulated through the CCG GP Bulletin on Monday, and will be available from Monday on the GP Desktop.
Practices are asked to review the Information Sharing Agreement Documentation and there are two documents which require signing and returning as soon as possible.
If you have any queries please contact Jess Brown in first instance.
Adoption Process The new guidance has been added to the news section on the PCSE website and as an FAQ on the registrations page and in the help section. Here
Richmond Group GP questionnaire on social prescribing in Somerset The Richmond Group of charities have been awarded a grant from the government’s Life Chances Fund to undertake a piece of work in Somerset looking at ‘social prescribing’. As part of this work, the CCG are sending out a brief questionnaire to GPs in Somerset to seek their views on current and potential social prescribing approaches across the county.
Kind Regards
Jill
Jill Hellens
Executive Director
Somerset LMC
TEL: 01823 331428
Fax:01823 338561
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