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Primary Care Bulletin - today's round-up
25 May 2021
Dear colleagues,
We would like to recognise and say a huge thank you to all the care home clinical leads for stepping up to support the early introduction of weekly home rounds or ‘check ins’, it’s been a year since all care homes across the country were given a named clinical lead at the start of the pandemic. They provided and continue to provide personalised care and support plans for care home residents in very challenging circumstances.
In addition, thank you for the pivotal work in the ongoing race to vaccinate the most vulnerable against COVID–19. We have seen the amazing partnership work between our GP teams, community clinicians and care homes and this is a true testament to the ethos of Enhanced Health in Care Homes (EHCH) which will drive our work forward in the coming year.
The vaccination programme overall hit another important milestone at the weekend, hitting 50 million vaccinations.
This could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of primary care network and community pharmacy vaccination sites.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Nikki and Ed
Dr Nikki Kanani
GP and Medical Director for Primary Care,
NHS England and NHS Improvement
Ed Waller
Director for Primary Care, NHS England and NHS Improvement
COVID-19 updates
COVID-19 vaccination status service - update for GP practices
The COVID-19 vaccination status service is now live. People in England can access their vaccination status via the NHS App, through www.nhs.uk/coronavirus or by requesting a letter from 119 (COVID-19 vaccination service).
GP practices may see an increase in interest from their registered patients for access to digital health records as a consequence. Accessing vaccination status does not require patient access to the detailed coded record.
People who contact 119 to request a vaccination status letter but where this cannot be issued, for example due to missing or incomplete vaccine information, will be sent a letter with an error code advising them to contact their GP practice. Further guidance for GP practices includes error letters, error codes, a description of the codes and suggest communications for practices to be able to take the appropriate next steps.
To manage workload, we recognise that GP practices may not be able to address all of the errors on behalf of their patients, and contact details for the vaccines support desk and vaccination data quality support team are also provided within the guidance. Any changes to a patient’s vaccination record should only be made in the Vaccination Point of Care system and not in the GP Clinical system.
Reminder to continue to perform Lateral Flow Device testing amongst asymptomatic staff
It is important that we protect all patients and NHS healthcare workers, vaccinated or not, by ensuring that all NHS healthcare workers continue to maintain regular asymptomatic testing and keep following infection prevention and control guidance to stop onward transmission. Around 9 in 10 NHS healthcare workers have now received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, however, there are thousands of people, including staff working in patient-facing NHS roles that will not have been vaccinated. Lateral flow device tests are the most commonly used COVID-19 test and all healthcare workers have been provided with kits to test themselves twice a week at home. Carrying out a lateral flow test is strongly encouraged but not mandated, however, reporting the results (positive, negative and invalid) is a statutory requirement for a notifiable virus. Any positive lateral flow tests must be followed by a confirmatory PCR test. Please continue to encourage your primary care teams to regularly perform lateral flow device tests for asymptomatic staff, to ensure all patients and staff are protected.
Local Vaccination Sites: Additional trained personnel on stand-by to support the vaccine programme
A National Workforce Support offer is available to provide additional capacity, over and above your local workforce teams to help with the vaccination programme.
This includes over 100,000 additional trained staff and volunteers ready and available to be deployed across the country from NHS Professionals, NHS Volunteer Responders and St John Ambulance, giving you immediate access to both clinical and non-clinical staff and volunteers. All workers have been fully vetted and trained and the volunteers cover a wide range of positions including vaccinators, stewards, patient advocates and post vaccination observation. Recent guidelines have also been updated to allow unregistered vaccinators with experience to now be able to be deployed to administer Pfizer.
Contact your Lead Employer, via your local Integrated Care System (ICS), who is the workforce hub for all local providers in your area, including access to additional staff.
For more details, please see LVS Workforce and the recently published NHS guidance for PCN groupings and community pharmacy.
General practice
GPs Returning to Practice
Working with Health Education England (HEE) we have recently launched the Emergency Registered Practitioner (ERP) returner programme, part of the overarching Return to Practice (RtP) programme to provide a safe, supported pathway for qualified GPs to return to NHS General Practice after an absence of more than 2 years. The ERP returner programme allows doctors temporarily registered under the ERP regulations to apply for a Return to Practice placement and to obtain advice on the most appropriate supported return pathway. To find out more or to register for the programme visit the HEE website. If you are considering recruiting an Emergency Registered Practitioner GP and would like further general information please email england.primarycareworkforce@nhs.net.
GP Patient Survey - PCN level data tool
We need your feedback on the 2020 GP Patient Survey interactive tool. This new interactive tool presents the 2020 survey results for each question in at PCN level, with a comparison to the national level result. Results are also broken down by GP practice for each PCN. This presents an opportunity to understand where good practice is present and where improvements could be made.
Tell us what works well and what could be improved by sending your feedback to ENGLAND.Insight-Queries@nhs.net and let us know if you might be interested in feeding into the further development of the GP Patient Survey.
Flexible GP pools to continue
Support for systems and PCNs to develop flexible pools of GP staff to work across the area will continue this year, with up to a further £120k per system being made available to support this work. Funding can be used to either establish a pool where provision doesn’t exist, or further enhance the function of existing pools, for instance with keep in touch days, or contact and support for returning GPs.
The pools support opportunities for GPs who want to work flexibly, and in turn systems and PCNs benefit from having a knowledgeable pool of GPs who can be deployed where the need is greatest. Pools can also be used to support the utilisation of the £120m Covid Capacity Extension Fund over April to September. Further detail is available in a refreshed guidance note.
GP2DRS diabetic eye screening
GP practices are encouraged to review the records of patients whose only indication of a definitive diagnosis of diabetes is the presence of certain codes. This is to ensure eligible patients receive access to diabetic eye screening.
Public Health England's GP2DRS system automatically extracts and shares information with local NHS diabetic eye screening services based on the presence of certain SNOMED CT codes on the patient’s record. However, there are other ‘ambiguous’ codes that don’t trigger extraction, as they are not considered a conclusive ‘diagnosis of diabetes’. These include 170763003 Diabetic - good control (finding) and 170745003 Diabetic on diet only (finding).
It is therefore important that GP practices should add a more definitive diagnosis code to the patient record, which will then trigger their referral for diabetic eye screening.
GP Appointment Data: GP practice briefing
Hosted by NHS Digital these sessions introduce recently issued national categorisation guidance and show practices how to carry out mapping to the new national standard categories. Improving appointment data will better inform general practice access models so it’s important we do all we can to ensure the data is reflective of activity. More dates and information is available online.
Optometry
First contracts awarded as eye care electronic e-referral management and image sharing service (EeRS) forges ahead
NHSX and NHS England and Improvement’s EeRS programme is entering an exciting new phase as regions begin implementation of electronic eye care referral systems. The roll out comes thanks to original capital funding of £7million from NHSX earlier this year.
Mounting pressures in hospital eye services, exacerbated by the pandemic, have led to an ambition to make better use of high street optometrists, so more patients can be seen closer to home and capacity is released in hospital-led services. Through EeRS, we can send referrals and images more efficiently, communicate more quickly with hospitals and provide more eye care services locally directly to patients.
Since December, the EeRS programme has scaled up at pace across England. Five suppliers are now in the process of delivering EeRS solutions across four regions, with procurements ongoing across the rest of the country including the Midlands, North West, North East and Yorkshire regions. This will bring us close to covering 40million of England’s population by the end of the calendar year.
Community pharmacy
Community Pharmacy Assurance Framework
The 2021/22 Community Pharmacy Assurance Framework (CPAF) screening questionnaire will be available for completion between Monday 28 June 2021 and Friday 24 July 2021 via the NHSBSA MYS portal. This reinstates the process following suspension in 2020/21 due to the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contractors are reminded that taking part in this process, as requested, is now mandatory. The screening questionnaire consists of 10 questions asking contractors about how they are meeting their contractual obligations. After the completion window closes and responses have been reviewed NHS England and NHS Improvement will select pharmacies to complete the full CPAF questionnaire and/or receive a monitoring visit. Contractors will receive further information via NHS Mail from the NHS BSA.
Primary care
National Patient Safety Alert - Urgent assessment/treatment following ingestion of ‘super strong’ magnets
A National Patient Safety Alert has been issued on the need for urgent assessment/treatment following ingestion of ‘super strong’ magnets, which are often sold as toys, decorative items, and fake piercings.
Because of the rapid damage that can be caused to the intestines/blood vessels, urgent Emergency Department assessment and treatment is vital where a patient has ingested (or are suspected of ingesting) ‘super strong’ magnets.
Blood pressure monitors available to support home monitoring
We, alongside NHSX have been working collaboratively to distribute home blood pressure monitors to CCGs to help support patients who have been identified as having high blood pressure or poorly controlled hypertension by their GP.
Patients can benefit from using a monitor at home to manage their blood pressure readings more effectively and send their readings instantly to their GP to review using text messaging or other digital tools, as recommended by their GP.
Primary care colleagues are reminded that there are a number of ICSs acting as trailblazers to accelerate the implementation of digital pathways to support patients to remotely monitor their high blood pressure and hypertension at home. Local CCGs are coordinating the distribution of blood pressure monitors, if you’d like to understand what is happening in your area, email england.home@nhs.net.
Find out more about home blood pressure monitoring which forms part of the national NHS@home programme. Read online about how home blood pressure management is an important step to support the NHS to recover after the pandemic.
Support to digitise social care records
To help social care and NHS organisations make the switch to Digital Social Care Records, NHSX has launched a new Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS), providing organisations with quicker and easier access to a list of quality-assured, accredited supplier solutions for digital social care records.
The adoption of digital social care record solutions across the social care sector has the potential to transform care outcomes and will play an important role in joining up care across both social care and the NHS. They will also provide organisations with the opportunity to free up time spent by care workers and managers on administrative tasks, whilst still equipping them with the right information they need to deliver care.
For the wider health and care economy, the adoption of a digital social care record solution enables real-time information to be shared with commissioners and regulators, demonstrating the care that has been provided with a greater emphasis on personalisation of care planning, focusing on the individual. For more information, visit the Digital Social Care website or email dscr.enquiries@nhsx.nhs.uk.
Dates for your diary
Wednesday 26 May, 11am – 12.30pm. Anticipatory Care - Population Health Management and Risk Stratification
Thursday 27 May, 1.30pm – 2.30pm. The business of boosting vaccine uptake - how we can work with businesses
Thursday 27 May, 7pm – 8.30pm. GP CPCS – next steps in promoting the service. As part of our ongoing comms activity to support the implementation of the GP referral pathway to the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service, we are hosting a webinar with the RCGP.
Wednesday 2 June, 11am – 12.30pm. Anticipatory Care - Data Sharing and Digital Tools for MDTs
Thursday 3 June, 1.30pm – 2.30pm. Boosting vaccine confidence within African and Caribbean communities
Monday 7 June 5pm – 6.30pm. Best MSKHealth Collaborative Update and FutureNHS Launch
Wednesday 9th June 11am – 12.30pm. Anticipatory Care - Personalised Care within Anticipatory Care
Link of the day
