COVID-19 Primary Care bulletin

28 April 2020

COVID-19: today's round-up for primary care

Dear primary care colleagues,

Thank you for your continuing work to support people in your community and ensure they are able to access health services when needed.

Friday’s bulletin confirmed indicative expectations for opening on the next bank holiday and invited CCGs, GP practices and community pharmacies to begin their planning for some sort of opening. We are working as quickly as possible to confirm the final arrangements to allow you to confirm your local positions.

Nikki and Ed

General practice 

Total triage and remote consultations

We are continuing to see real progress being made in general practice in moving towards a total triage approach using online consultations, and video consultations to support the remote management of patients. Practices are reminded that they should have an online consultation system in place by 30 April 2020. As of last Friday (24 April) 58% of practices were live with an online consultation system, with an additional 34% currently implementing a system and 2% going through procurement. There is funded implementation support available to help with the roll out and effective use of these tools, so please do take advantage of this. Please contact your NHSE/I regional team or the NHSX Implementation Team to access this support.

Community pharmacy

Managing Conflict: Dealing with Angry and Abusive Patients

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society in collaboration with The Mental Wellness Academy and Pharmacy Support have produced guidance on dealing with angry and abusive patients. NHS England and NHS Improvement will be launching a community pharmacy PR campaign next week to support access to medicines for the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Community Pharmacy webinar

The recording of the 22 April community pharmacy webinar with Ed Waller and Keith Ridge is now available on the Future NHS platform. It includes updates on Covid-19 testing by Dr Aidan Fowler, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health and Social Care and a regulatory update from Duncan Rudkin, Chief Executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council.

Dentistry 

The most recent guidance letter and standard operating procedure for oral health professionals is available on our website.

Optometry

The most recent guidance letter for optical staff is available on our website.

Additional information

The Digital Nurse Network will discuss the role of remote working at Health at Home during COVID-19 

The next Digital Nurse Network webinar will take place on 30 April 2020 from 1-2pm. Our Clinical Nurse Advisors Helen Crowther and Ann Gregory will be discussing #remoteworking and the role of the network during #COVID19. Nicola Fulton will also give an overview of the Health at Home campaign and how it can positively impact nurses and their patients. Register here.

Domestic Abuse Campaign 

The Home Office is running a domestic abuse campaign, raising awareness of the support and advice currently available. They are grateful for all the support received so far from the NHS stakeholders and would appreciate if you could share the campaign assets with your networks and include a link on your website to the campaign page: gov.uk/domestic-abuse. Further information and online assets are available here.

Dates for your diary 

Upcoming webinars

• 28 April, 12.30-1pm: giving your patients access to online services remotely 
• 30 April, 4.30-5pm: Video Consultations: using accuRx throughout COVID-19 for EMIS and SystmOne practices
• 30 April, 5-6pm: primary care webinar with Nikki and Ed with a focus on an extended Question and Answer session 
• 7 May, 11am: homeless health webinar