27 April 2023

Dear colleagues,

For the forthcoming bank holidays, thank you for arranging appropriate cover and for updating the DOS profiles with any changes to services, service opening hours and information for patients. This will allow patients to be supported with access and urgent queries and care needs, including access to any medicines they need.

The NHS Service Finder supports healthcare professionals including NHS111 teams to locate nearby and available NHS services for patients, check opening times and access other non-public information. Please utilise this service when planning cover for the bank holiday period.

At the next GP webinar on 4 May we’ll be covering changes to QOF/IIF and Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), as outlined in the new contractual arrangements for 23/24, plus a case study from a GP practice that has rolled out online access to medical records to their patients. Book your place by Wednesday 3 May.

Kiren and Ali

Primary care

New animations to support children and young people with long COVID

The NHS Your COVID Recovery website provides information and support on the symptoms of COVID-19, helping people to understand the condition, advice on managing their recovery and guidance on where they can get further information and support. 

A series of new animations have now been added to the NHS Your COVID Recovery website aimed at supporting children and young people experiencing ongoing symptoms. Developed with clinicians and young people with lived experience, the animations cover a range of topics including managing emotions and feelings, eating well, sleep and returning to education.

National primary care clinical pathway for constipation in children

The new national primary care clinical pathway for constipation in children guidance supports clinicians in the prevention and management of constipation in children and young people.

The pathway provides a clear and standardised approach, based on guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the British National Formulary for Children (BNFc) and clinical expert groups.

Resources are available for clinicians, families and other care providers which are easily accessible. The pathway also aims is to raise the profile of constipation in children and young people with a learning disability as a factor in adult mortality rates.

Diabetes management appliances

Following a successful national assessment into the most clinically appropriate and best value diabetes appliances, new commissioning recommendations on blood glucose and ketone meters, testing strips and lancets have been published.

The new guidance recommends 16 appliances from the 90 that are currently available, making prescribing practices simpler for healthcare professionals and providing both type-1 and type-2 patients with the best quality products, whilst driving millions of pounds in savings.

If you have any questions about the new guidance, please contact your local diabetes or medicines optimisation lead.

Free access to tailored digital resources to support unpaid carers

Carers UK and NHS England are giving all unpaid carers in England free access to Carers UK Digital Resource for Carers. Unpaid carers can be provided with an access code allocated to your Integrated Care Board (ICB). Carers UK has published guidance and resources for professionals to support information sharing. 

BLOG: ‘I am proud to support the ambition to accessing mental health care’

In this blog, Lisa Dymond, Mental Health Practitioner (MHP), describes how her role supports both primary and secondary care, bridging the gap between the two services to provide better connected local mental health services for patients.

She explains how embedding MHPs in primary care improves access to specialist advice and treatment, is good for patients, helpful for providers and will ease system pressures in the longer term.

Creating Community Conversations

NHS England is funding a small number of places on the online learning programme ‘Creating Community Conversations’ for anyone working in primary care, which gives colleagues the knowledge and practical resources to work alongside local people and communities. Registration is open to anybody who wants to help local people have their say in how services are designed and delivered.

Test your shared decision-making skills with the PCI's new series of virtual patient consultations

The Personalised Care Institute (PCI) has launched lifelike virtual reality training on shared decision making (SDM) - providing clinicians with the opportunity to put their skills to the test through a series of simulated virtual patient consultations.

Believed to be the first in the world to use virtual reality to explore the key SDM micro-skills of agenda-setting, teach-back and exploring patient preferences, the free simulations allow users to try different conversation pathways and techniques in a risk-free environment – with comprehensive feedback provided at the end of each exercise.

General practice

New Standard GMS, PMS and APMS Contracts Published

NHS England has published new standard General Medical Services (GMS), Personal Medical Services (PMS) and Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contracts, along with their contract variation notices. The documentation reflects the introduction of a dedicated pre-payment certificate for the prescribing of HRT treatments from 1 April 2023 and also updates the terms of service for dispensing doctors to reflect changes to the Pharmacy Regulations.

Commissioners are required to send these updates to GP practices to formally notify them of changes to their contracts.

General Practice Access Routes campaign

This week, all GP practices in England will receive a package of printed materials to help them to explain the access routes available to patients wishing to request care.

Following feedback that patients would benefit from clarity on how to access care, materials have been produced which explain the different access routes. The materials have been tested by practice staff and patients as part of a pilot. The toolkit and digital materials are also available on the Campaign Resource Centre.

Vaccinations in pregnancy

Please note that the autumn booster campaign for COVID-19 has ended. Pregnant women who have had one COVID-19 vaccination, or none at all, can still get the vaccine until 30 June. Not everyone will be able to get the COVID vaccine from the NHS after this date.

Pregnant women may receive a spring COVID-19 vaccination if they meet other eligibility criteria.

Dentistry

Help us understand your referral process

NHS England is looking for user research participants who make any type of NHS referrals, especially those who don’t already use e-RS, to help identify how the service could be used by more health professionals in the future.

The NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) welcomes feedback from dentists providing NHS services to better understand patient referrals. Please complete this short online survey or contact Emily West for more information.

Community pharmacy

The Summary Care Record application is changing

The National Care Records Service (NCRS) is the improved successor to the Summary Care Record application (SCRa). NHS England requires all users and organisations to switch from SCRa to NCRS by 29 September 2023.

NCRS provides a quick, secure way to access national patient information to improve clinical decision making and healthcare outcomes and it is free to use.

Antimicrobial Stewardship Activities in England’s Community Pharmacies through the Pharmacy Quality Scheme

The Use of the TARGET Antibiotic Checklist to Support Antimicrobial Stewardship in England’s Community Pharmacies has recently been published. Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) requires effective teamwork with patients receiving consistent messages from all healthcare professionals on appropriate antimicrobial use, providing indication-specific education, and positively impacting the uptake of influenza vaccinations.

Community pharmacy teams successfully promoted AMS using the TARGET Antibiotic Checklist through the Pharmacy Quality Scheme, the review of which has been published online. 

Amendments to the Pharmaceutical Services & Local Pharmaceutical Services Regulations

Several regulatory amendments have been laid before Parliament that will come into effect on 25 May 2023. The amendments include provisions to make it easier to change core hours so staff can take rest breaks, temporarily enable coordinated closures via Local Hours Plans and implement business continuity arrangements should the pharmacy be unable to open and allow limited reduction of core hours for contractors who entered the Pharmaceutical List under the 100-hour exemption.

Pharmacy Quality Scheme (PQS) – launch of year 5 scheme

The year 5 Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) PQS scheme will launch on 1 June 2023 and will consist of one gateway criterion (NMS) and three domains with annual funding of £45 million to support national health priorities.

Referrals from Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) into the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service (CPCS)

The May 2023 Drug Tariff has been amended to allow CPCS referrals from UEC, e.g. urgent treatment centres and emergency departments. Contractors may start to receive referrals from 15 May 2023 if local UEC providers have implemented an electronic referral process.

The service specification for the advanced service will be published in due course. We are working with the community pharmacy IT supplier market to develop integrated referrals to support this pathway.

Events and webinars

2 May, 10:30am – 11.30am. Involving people and communities – a practical guide

4 May, 5pm – 6pm. General practice webinar

5 May, 1pm – 2pm. GPN National Update

16 May, 2pm – 4pm. Learning Disability Annual Health Check learn and share event

17 May, 11am – 3pm. Action on Outpatients – equity of access: what next?

7 June, 9.30am – 4pm. Primary care improvers conference

Missed a recent national webinar? You can view slides and recordings below:

• Watch our series of General Practice webinars
• Watch our series of Primary Care Network webinars

Download patient-facing materials