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Primary Care Bulletin - today's round-up
23 March 2021
Dear colleagues,
Today has been marked by many as a year's anniversary since the start of the pandemic. None of us personally or professionally knew how much it would still be affecting all our lives. Your support, resilience and versatility across primary care has been phenomenal and inspiring. Remember, there is confidential coaching support available for everyone working in primary care through our Looking After You Too and Looking After Your Team offers. Please do take a look to support the wellbeing of yourself and your teams.
COVID remote monitoring scheme
We’re pleased to announce that at least 37,000 people have now benefited from the COVID remote monitoring scheme, which has helped high risk COVID patients monitor their condition from home. Pulse oximeters have been an enormous success and a lifeline for thousands of COVID patients. Thank you to everyone who has supported this scheme.
In this blog, National Clinical Director for Infection, Antimicrobial Resistance & Deterioration Dr Matt Inada Kim explains the impact of COVID Oximetry @home and COVID virtual ward services, and how the learning is now being incorporated into the design of other care pathways. In a complementary blog, NHSX Chief Digital Officer Tara Donnelly reflects on the progress made to implement tech-enabled COVID virtual wards, now in place across 85 NHS organisations.
Kiren and Ali
Dr Kiren Collison
GP and Deputy Medical Director for Primary Care, NHS England and NHS Improvement
Ali Sparke
Interim Director for Primary Care Covid Response, NHS England and NHS Improvement
COVID-19 updates and guidance
Supporting equitable uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination in people with Severe Mental Illness
People with Severe Mental Illness (SMI), who face reduced life expectancy of 15-20 years when compared to the general population are included in priority group six to access the COVID-19 vaccination from 14 February.
Some people with SMI may not know if they are eligible. Therefore, in line with the JCVI green book, it is vital that we take an inclusive approach to ensure people with bipolar, schizophrenia and any other illness that would impair functional impairment can access their COVID-19 vaccination. For instance, this could include people with an eating disorder (either a high or low BMI) or people with a diagnosis of personality disorder.
We also know that people with SMI have lower utilisation of primary care services and may find it difficult to attend vaccination appointments. There is a suite of resources available to support equitable uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination:
- Tailored invitation letter
- Tips for engaging people with SMI in healthcare services
- A guide for people with SMI on what to expect from the COVID-19 vaccination programme
- Re-think mental illness COVID-19 vaccination resources for people with SMI
Information on supporting clinically extremely vulnerable staff
This letter from Prerana Issar, NHS Chief People Officer, and Dr Nikki Kanani, Medical Director for Primary Care, outlines shielding advice for clinically extremely vulnerable staff. The government has now confirmed that, from 1 April 2021, shielding advice will be paused nationally. This reflects falling infection rates and advice from the Chief Medical Officer. The Shielded Patient List will continue to be kept current in case of a future need.
In summary, the new advice from 1 April is to continue to work from home where possible and if individuals cannot work from home, employers should undertake a comprehensive, individual, workplace risk assessment reflecting the current working context (i.e. improved testing, vaccination and relationship with transmission).
Women’s safety and domestic abuse during COVID-19: a reminder of advice for NHS staff
In the last few weeks, many women are rightly coming forward to speak about the experiences they face of harassment, intimidation, assault and abuse. This letter is to remind everyone of the key signs of domestic abuse and the services that are available for women.
Supporting CCGs to address vaccine inequalities
Thank you for the work you are doing to address vaccine inequalities in your area. This letter and next steps guide describe further national action to enable and locally deliver community activity and engagement to support COVID-19 vaccination access and uptake, building on the vaccine uptake strategy.
Pregnancy and vaccination actions for maternity services
This letter from Matthew Jolly, National Clinical Director for Maternity and Women’s Health, and Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent OBE, Chief Midwifery Officer and National Maternity Safety Champion, asks maternity services to take actions to identify eligible pregnant and invite them appropriately for vaccination, while enabling them to make an informed choice about receiving it.
Risk management materials
Based on the early vaccination incidents, the Pharmacy Defence Association has produced some risk management materials, including a poster and colour coded stickers to prevent Pfizer and AZ vaccine mix ups.
General practice
Supporting General Practice: additional £120m funding for April to September 2021
It remains a priority to maintain and expand general practice capacity in order to support the ongoing response to COVID-19. Therefore, £120 million of revenue funding has been ringfenced exclusively for general practice to support the expansion of capacity until the end of September.
Implementing the 2021/22 GP contract changes to personal medical services and alternative provider medical services contracts
This document sets out the approach to the funding changes that we will apply to Personal Medical Services (PMS) and Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contracts. Commissioners will update local PMS and APMS contracts as soon as possible, applying the funding changes identified in this guidance with effect from 1 April 2021.
General Medical Services (GMS) Ready Reckoner 2021/22
The ready reckoner has been produced by NHS England and NHS Improvement in partnership with the BMA General Practitioners Committee (GPC) and is intended to provide an indication of the changes in income streams that may affect a GMS practice and Primary Care Network (PCN) from 1 April 2021.
Closure of Fit for Work service
The ‘Fit for Work’ service run by Health Management Ltd will close in England and Wales on 31 March 2021. From 1 April 2021, staff should refer to alternative sources of information such as NHS.uk, Gov.uk and ACAS. The Fit for Work website and helpline will automatically redirect users to these places.
The Government will shortly publish its response to the ‘Health is everyone’s business’ consultation. This is expected to include proposals to improve the provision of advice and information to support management of health in the workplace.
Community pharmacy
Primary Care Support England expanding services for pharmacies from 31 March 21
Primary Care Support England (PCSE) is expanding its services for pharmacies this Spring. As well as the current market entry applications already processed by PCSE, it will start to manage consolidation applications too - when two pharmacies within the same Health and Wellbeing Board wish to merge onto an existing site. As such, PCSE is changing the name of its Market Entry Service to Pharmacy Market Management Services (PMMS) from 31 March 2021. Consolidation applications can be made via the online portal from this date.
The online portal also contains further guidance about consolidations including how to register on the PCSE online portal, information from the Pharmacy Manual and PSNC guidance.
Dentistry
‘What can your NHS dentist do for you?’ easy read guide
An easy read guide for dental practices has been produced to support people with a learning disability and/or autism with guidance on accessing NHS dental care. It can be downloaded from the PHE campaign resource centre and includes information on finding a dentist, dental care/emergency care, costs, treatments and visiting a dentist during COVID-19.
Primary care
COVID-19 vaccination programme: FAQs on second doses
A range of FAQs has been published, with answers to questions including ‘Does second dose vaccination need to happen at the same place as the first dose?’ and ‘Can different vaccines be used for first and second doses?’
Strong integrated case systems everywhere
One of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that people need support which is joined up across local councils, the NHS and voluntary and community organisations. This video explains how Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) embed this collaboration, helping local services to respond to the challenges of the pandemic and beyond. We want to make ICSs as strong and effective as possible in every part of England, with partnership working with the ambition to tackle health inequalities, help communities thrive and achieve the very best for everyone. Find out more.
Certificate for volunteers who supported the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme
A certificate has been produced for local systems to adapt and present to their volunteers as a thank you for dedicating their time to support delivering COVID vaccinations. The certificate is signed by Dr Nikki Kanani.
Learning from the lives and deaths of people with a learning disability and autistic people (LeDeR)
The newly published LeDeR policy outlines a number of changes to existing LeDeR policies as well as serving as a guide to professionals working in all parts of the health and social care system on their roles in delivering the programme. Most importantly the policy sees the responsibility for making sure that actions are implemented to improve the quality of services for people with a learning disability and autistic people, reduce health inequalities and premature mortality moving from clinical commissioning groups to integrated care systems.
Some of the policy changes, such as the new review process, will need to be implemented by local systems in line with the changes to the web-based platform which will go-live on 1 June this
year. Other changes in the policy must be implemented by 1 April 2022. The policy has been co-produced with bereaved family members, people with a learning disability, health and social care professionals and people from across the LeDeR workforce.
The Health Anchors Learning Network
Join the Health Anchors Learning Network annual gathering on 20 – 23 April to share ideas with peers and experts and learn how NHS anchors can use their employment and spending practices to support social and economic development, community wellbeing and tackle inequalities. Other sessions include learning from North America how the anchor role has been used to tackle racial inequalities. All events are free. Find out more and register here.
Give feedback to the AI pilot on LFD results
From the beginning of March NHS Digital have trialled new artificial intelligence (AI) software to read test results of lateral flow devices (LFD), to make reporting results quicker, easier to understand and more accurate.
The participation of primary care staff so far in the pilot has been incredibly helpful to the development of this service. If primary care staff have taken a photo of their test result as part of this service, or next time they do, please fill in a short survey about your experience and feedback. This is critical to understand the experience of using the service and is a huge part of the pilot that will help building a working service that is fit for purpose.
Dates for your diary
Tuesday 23 March, 2pm – 3pm. ICSs and patient empowerment – how can we work, at place, to effectively give people better control over their own health and care?
Wednesday 24 March, 10am – 11am. Connecting with our local community to deliver the COVID vaccine programme
Wednesday 24 March, 12pm – 1pm. PCN webinar: Mental health practitioner
Thursday 25 March, 9.30am – 11am. Flexible working: how to ask
Thursday 25 March, 10.30am – 11.30am. Building and developing trusted connections with communities
Thursday 25 March, 12pm – 12.45pm. Addressing COVID-19 vaccine inequalities
Thursday 25 March, 1pm – 2.15pm. Community Champions best practice webinar: Vaccine hesitancy and myth-busting
Thursday 25 March, 5pm – 6pm. General Practice webinar
Wednesday 31 March, 6pm – 7.15pm. The eye care digital playbook – how digital technology and connectivity can help deliver service improvement and transformation
Wednesday 28 April, 5.30pm – 7pm. Primary care networks webinar: A focus on additional roles reimbursement scheme and recruitment
Link of the day
