COVID-19 Primary Care bulletin

6 May 2020

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

Dear colleagues,

Please note that the fourth in a series of fortnightly community pharmacy webinars hosted by Keith Ridge and Ed Waller will now take place on Thursday 7 May from 7pm – 8pm instead of Wednesday 6 May. We hope you will be able to attend the revised date. More details on this can be found below.

It will follow the regular general practice webinar which will run this week from 5-6:30pm with extra time for a Q&A. Please do send in any questions you have in advance using this online form. You can also use this form to submit examples of good practice so that we can share learning with others. We hope you can join.

Nikki and Ed

Community pharmacy

Pharmacy teams supporting care homes with medicines supply and use
Following the publication of the letter outlining the second phase of NHS response to COVID-19, we published a letter earlier this week asking primary care and community health services to help provide the best possible care for care home residents. As part of this urgent response to COVID-19, CCGs, PCNs and practices have been asked to coordinate pharmacy teams (including CCG employed pharmacists, PCN pharmacists and pharmacists working as part of the Medicines Optimisation in Care Homes programme) to provide support to care homes residents and staff. Chief Pharmaceutical Officer Keith Ridge has commissioned work to develop a model of service to help local systems reduce the risk of harm during the COVID-19 period by ensuring that consistent medicines and pharmacy services meet the needs of care home residents. This guidance will be delivered as quickly as possible.

Priority medicines for palliative and end of life care during a pandemic
In order to manage additional demand for end of life medicines, and ensure safe, equitable and compassionate care for patients, we have worked with the Association of Palliative Medicines, Royal College of GPs, Hospice UK and the Association of Supportive and Palliative Care Pharmacy to publish Priority medicines for palliative and end of life care during a pandemic. This clinical guidance for essential end of life medicines, which sets out the first and second choices for these medicines, will enable the NHS to conserve supplies, switch to alternative drugs when required and minimise waste. This is also being used to guide the purchasing of medicines for the UK. It aims to support healthcare professionals working in palliative and end of life care, including GPs and pharmacists, across hospital, community, social care and hospice settings to work together in managing additional demand for end of life medicines due to COVID-19. This should be read alongside the recently published DHSC standard operating procedure on how to run a safe and effective medicines reuse scheme in a care home or hospice during the coronavirus outbreak.

Updating 8 May bank holiday hours in DoS and on NHS website
As announced in the  bulletin last Friday, we have advised all community pharmacies in England to open 2-5pm on 8 May 2020; with exceptions or a variation to those hours, based on the likely demand and local needs, agreed in advance with the NHS England and NHS Improvement regional teams. These three hours will be remunerated at a rate of £250/hour. It is important that contractors update their DoS entry and that the pharmacy NHS website entry is correct for Friday 8 May. The step-by-step guide for updating your NHS website profile is available here.  Contractors can use the Dos Profile Updater to make the necessary changes by the end of Wednesday 6 May 2020. Thank you to all community pharmacy colleagues for their continued support for bank holiday opening during the ongoing pandemic which is essential to ensure patients can have access to the medicines they need. 

Community pharmacy webinar - change of date
As mentioned above, the next community pharmacy webinar will take place on Thursday 7 May from 7pm – 8pm instead of Wednesday 6 May. Dr Nikki Kanani will be joining Keith and Ed to talk about COVID 19 and impact on BAME communities.  Please click here to join. 

Payments for the home delivery of medicines and appliances service during the COVID-19 outbreak
Community pharmacy contractors are now able to claim payment on the Manage Your Service (MYS) portal . Contractors must submit their claims for payment monthly via the MYS platform no later than the 5th of the following month.

Optometry

COVID-19 Urgent Eyecare Service (CUES)
In the interest of responding quickly and effectively to the exceptional situation created by the pandemic, NHS England has worked collaboratively with the College of Optometrists and The Royal College of Ophthalmologists to develop a clinically endorsed COVID-19 Urgent Eyecare Service (CUES) that will achieve two key objectives:

• Rapid implementation of safe urgent and emergency services
• Support for the wider system by keeping patients away from GPs, A&E, and hospital eye departments

Responsibility for commissioning CUES sits with CCGs, and both Colleges are working alongside NHS England to encourage CCGs across the country to implement the service for the benefit of their local populations. A webinar is being organised for all commissioners week commencing 11 May to provide more information about the service. For details, please contact Richard Everitt at: richard.everitt@nhs.net.

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

Dentistry

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

Additional information

Primary care wellbeing survey
We would like to understand the current wellbeing of the primary care workforce, and invite you to take part in a short survey undertaken by the Institute for Employment Studies to support this and to support the wider evaluation of the #lookingafteryoutoo primary care coaching offer. The survey will take no longer that five minutes to complete and will contribute to our ongoing response to support your wellbeing.

Video-call the midwife
England’s top midwife has today praised NHS maternity teams for providing high quality care in the face of the most significant challenge to ever face the health services, and urged new and expectant families to continue to come forward for routine checks and urgent advice.

Dates for your diary 

Upcoming webinars

• 6 May, 5-6pm The role of mental health services and support for rough sleepers
• 6 May, 6.30-7.30pm: Ethnicity, COVID-19 and Primary Care webinar
• 7 May, 11am: Homeless Health webinar

• 7 May, 12.30–1.30pm: NHSCC and PCN Network joint webinar – Coordinating in a crisis: A focus on primary care

• 7 May, 5-6.30pm: General practice webinar with Nikki Kanani and Ed Waller including a Q&A session
• 7 May, 7-8pm: Community Pharmacy webinar with Keith Ridge and Ed Waller (new date)

​To catch up on previous webinars visit Future NHS. 

Nikki and Ed's Link of the Day

The RSA: How do we make sense of how the crisis is changing the world as we are living through it?