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Primary Care Bulletin - today's round-up
4 March 2021
Dear colleagues,
As we continue to work on delivering the COVID-19 vaccination programme across the country, supporting those who are dealing with the long-term effects of COVID-19 continues to be a key priority.
A set of SNOMED CT codes to support the management of these long term effects have been released and are available on all major GP EPR systems. Knowledge about Post-COVID syndrome is currently limited so it is vital that we increase the use of Post-COVID syndrome codes where appropriate, to allow data to be captured for learning, service planning and research. You can find more information about the codes on the PCN Future NHS workspace.
There are 67 Post-COVID Assessment Services across the country. Each region has an identified lead for post COVID services, details of which are available on Future NHS, along with information on how local teams or post COVID assessment services can refer patients to the Your COVID Recovery online platform. Please contact your regional lead for further information on Long COVID services and patient pathways in your area.
To best equip clinicians to help patients with post-COVID syndrome, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) have produced tips on the management of long-term effects of COVID-19 and Health Education England (HEE) have set-up e-learning modules on COVID-19 recovery and rehabilitation.
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
Cohort six search available for Primary Care Network Local Vaccination Services
A reminder that a search using nationally assured SNOMED codes is available in GP systems to help Primary Care Networks identify individuals who fall under the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation’s priority cohort six for coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination. The search includes patients with underlying health conditions and people who are registered as carers at a GP practice.
The SNOMED codes have been identified in line with chapter 14 of Public Health England’s Green Book, which contains vaccination information for public health professionals. To view the national technical specification for this search, please register on the PRIMIS website.
GP practices should have received information about how to use the cohort six search directly from their system supplier. For further help and support, contact the National Vaccination Service Desk 0300 200 1000 vaccineservicedesk@england.nhs.uk.
Updated version of easy read vaccination invitation letter for people with a learning disability
The easy read vaccination invitation letter for people with a learning disability has been updated and the new version should now be used when calling these patients for a vaccination appointment. The previous version should be deleted and your teams advised of this change. The letter has been updated to allow the opportunity, should individuals and their families wish, to attend mass vaccination sites and pharmacies by contacting the National Booking Service via 119. Appropriate system arrangements are now set in place to facilitate these arrangements.
Please also continue to use the accessible resources produced in collaboration with people with lived experience to support clinicians and non-clinicians in communicating with people with a learning disability and their family carers. These include a Covid-19 Vaccine film, Public Health England's easy read Covid vaccination leaflet, 'What to expect after the vaccine' leaflet and adult consent form and additional training materials for COVID 19 vaccinators and volunteers which provide top tips on communicating with people with a learning disability and autistic people and reasonable adjustments that should be considered.
Free training for vaccination staff and volunteers
It’s essential that everyone who comes for a vaccine feels safe, supported and understood. The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) have free training available to staff and volunteers working on the vaccine programme to help you feel more confident in supporting people with sight loss. You can pick from three short online training modules covering communication, how to guide, and the experiences of people with sight loss, relevant to your time in the vaccination programme and beyond. Visit the website and click the “register” button to access the training. If you don’t have much time, you can download a quick “handy tips” document for working with people with sight loss and display it in staff areas of your vaccination centre. They have also produced a ‘Helping you to help others’ guide.
Reminder: reporting COVID-19 lateral flow test results - AI trial
From 5 March, NHS Digital are trialling new artificial intelligence (AI) software to read test results of lateral flow devices, to make reporting results quicker, easier to understand and more accurate. As a reminder, it is really important and a statutory duty that primary care staff testing with LFDs report their test results online – whether negative, positive or invalid.
Primary care staff reporting their LFD test result on GOV.UK as normal will be able to take part in this trial by simply taking a picture of their test. To take part staff can:
- take their lateral flow test as usual
- report their result online at GOV.UK as usual
- when they report it: use a smartphone or tablet and follow the prompts to take a photo of the lateral flow device (LFD) to upload with your result
- after they've reported the result - give feedback on the process using this short survey
Taking part is entirely optional and staff can continue to report their test results as usual, however it will help improve the overall reporting process.
PRINCIPLE trial recruitment push
The PRINCIPLE trial is the only national Urgent Public Health priority clinical trial evaluating potential therapeutics for COVID-19 in the primary care setting. Anyone aged 65+, or 50+ with comorbidity, and who has COVID-19 symptoms that started within the last 14 days is eligible and it is vital that every patient eligible for the PRINCIPLE trial is offered the chance to contribute to this study.
You can support enrolment by: identifying eligible patients; signposting patients to self-register for the trial at www.principletrial.org or by phoning 0800 138 0880; or where possible, enrolling patients directly into the trial (further information on how to do this is available here). Please also respond as soon as possible to requests from the trial team to provide a limited medical summary for patients who have registered to take part in the trial, so that the trial team can confirm eligibility.
General practice
Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) and people with a learning disability and/or autism
As you know, the key principle of applying DNACPR is that each person is an individual whose needs and preferences must be taken account of individually. We have published a letter today with information to assist colleagues in their understanding regarding how to approach advance care planning for people with a learning disability and the importance of ensuring that these notices are appropriately applied.
Reviewing coding of Down’s syndrome patients
As part of NHS Digital’s work to identify those who are Clinically Extremely Vulnerable to COVID19, coded data has been collected from GP records. This work has revealed some anomalies around coding for some conditions, one of which is the incorrect coding of Down’s syndrome. This error has occurred when a woman carrying a fetus with Down’s syndrome has been incorrectly coded as having Down’s syndrome in her own record instead of a code which relates to the fetus she is carrying.
We would advise that you check your coding of Down’s syndrome by carrying out a search and reviewing people with this code. Advice on the clinical coding of Down’s syndrome can be found here.
Where a person has been coded in error and is incorrectly on the Shielded Patient List (SPL), it is important that the code is replaced with an appropriate lower category risk code. Only the addition of a low or moderate category code will remove a person from the SPL. Advice on how to do this can be found here.
If your patient gave birth to a child with Down’s syndrome, please check that the child is correctly coded for Down’s syndrome on their record.
Please remember to inform affected patients when adding to or removing from the Shielded Patient List.
It is very important that correct coding is used to ensure that patients receive the right care. We appreciate your efforts to help us overcome this anomaly. If you need help with how to undertake a search on your clinical system, please contact your local IT support organisation.
GP Standard Operating Procedure updated
The GP Standard Operating Procedure has been updated with the updates to include the latest guidance and policy.
GP practice flu post-payment assurance
On behalf of NHS England and NHS Improvement, NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) will be helping GP practices to submit accurate payment claims for DHSC supplied and locally procured flu vaccines.
NHSBSA has published important information for all practices administering flu vaccines. Visit their website for information covering:
- claiming for reimbursement
- completing your end of season 2020/21 flu vaccine declaration
- deadline for submitting your 2020/21 flu reimbursement claims
- guidance around NHSBSA’s post payment verification process
Help with reaching out to GP practices
During 2020, the MHRA worked with healthcare partners to identify and introduce flexibilities in the regulation of medicines and medical devices with a view to supporting the healthcare products supply chain and wider response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK. These flexibilities do not displace or diminish any other obligations applicable to the relevant products.
As part of an ongoing consultation that will help inform the MHRA’s strategy over the future use of these flexibilities, the agency would like to gather further insight from healthcare professionals through a survey which will close 5pm on Monday, 15 March 2021.
Community pharmacy
National Pharmacy Association COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy webinar now available online
A webinar for community pharmacy teams on understanding COVID-19 vaccinations and addressing vaccine hesitancy is now available to view on demand.
This event was organised by the National Pharmacy Association, recognising that people have a high level of trust in their local pharmacists, which could be an important factor in overcoming doubts and misapprehensions about vaccines for COVID-19 – including within Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. Speakers included: Dr Shirley Hopper, Medical Assessor, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and Professor Jeremy Brown, Professor of Respiratory Infection UCL, Member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Primary care
Government announces £100m to help those living with obesity
Today the government announced funding for weight management services for 2021/22. As part of this investment, there will be over £70 million invested in adult services, to enable up to 700,000 more people to access support. This includes additional investment for a digital weight management programme for people with obesity and diabetes and/or hypertension, which will be implemented from April 2021, the development of a proposed GP enhanced service; and investment to develop Tier 3 and 4 services. Further communication will be made in due course, but for more information please contact england.wmp-prevention@nhs.net.
Social prescribing link worker recruitment – reminder
If you responded to an offer of short term funded support for the costs of recruiting additional social prescribing link workers, don’t miss out on the funding. If you have not yet confirmed your recruitment or submitted the agreement form which was sent to you it is not too late, but please confirm your intentions and submit the form to england.linkworkerrecruitment@nhs.net no later than 26 March 2021 to ensure that funding is not lost.
Self Care Forum Survey: Changes in professionals’ attitudes of self-care during the pandemic
The Self Care Forum and Imperial College London’s Self Care Academic Research Unit (SCARU) are inviting all professionals involved in the delivery of care, across all sectors, to participate and complete our short online questionnaire. COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the delivery of health and care services. Supported self care has revealed itself as the critical answer to tackling the pandemic. Professionals and the population alike have successfully adapted their expectations and practice to support this way of working. Yet little is known about this quantum change in professional attitudes and practice and its likely impact.
The Self Care Forum and SCARU are undertaking qualitative research to explore this further. We would appreciate your help and ask that you spare 5-10 minutes to complete this eSurvey.
Dates for your diary
Friday 5 March, 12pm – 1.15pm. The opportunities for systems to improve patient outcomes using digital and data
Monday 8 March, 7.30am – 4pm. International Women's Day 2021 Celebration with Prerana Issar, NHS Chief People Officer and Samantha Allen, Chair of the NHS Confederation's Health & Care Women Leaders Network
Thursday 11 March, 5pm – 6pm. General Practice Webinar with Ali Sparke & Dr Kiren Collison
Ali Sparke & Kiren Collison will provide a general update before Dr Nikki Kanani and Ed Waller lead on updates about the COVID-19 vaccination programme, with a summary update for GPs on implementation plans. There will also be an update on the PCN Primary Care Network (PCN) Dashboard and Population Health Management.
Tuesday 16 March, 9am – 5pm. NHS and the armed forces conference
Wednesday 17 March, 3.30pm – 5pm. Inclusion Health Self- Assessment tool live demonstration
Thursday 18 March, 1pm – 2pm. Learning from Co-production – using better engagement to address health inequalities
Thursday 18 March, 2pm – 3.30pm. Workforce recruitment and retention in PCNs
Wednesday 24 March, 10am - 11am. Connecting with our local community to deliver the COVID vaccine programme
Thursday 25 March, 10.30am – 11.30 am. Building and developing trusted connections with communities
Link of the day
