Primary Care Bulletin - today's round-up

17 June 2021

Dear colleagues,

Today’s GP appointment data for April 2021 shows that there were 31.5m appointments including COVID-19 vaccines given in practices/PCNs in April, an increase of 28% on April 2019. Excluding covid vaccinations shows that appointment numbers for other reasons are 2.4% lower than in April 2019. Thank you for all you are doing to both offer routine care and maintain your incredible input to the vaccination programme.

Next week we welcome wave 20 of the local vaccination sites joining the vaccination programme, taking us to over 600 community pharmacy vaccination locations. This is a fantastic team effort across primary care as we continue to work together to support our communities to protect themselves against coronavirus.

This was further reflected in NHS England Chief Operating Officer Amanda Pritchard’s speech at the NHS Confederation conference where she spotlighted the great work already happening across general practice, community pharmacy and dentistry to make every contact count with patients, using every opportunity to keep people well rather than just seeking to make them better. Amanda’s speech highlighted the other pilots we are exploring to expand this work, for example at autumn/winter flu clinics.

To further support general practice, we are pleased to confirm we will be extending the funding for PCN Clinical Director support for those participating in phase two of the vaccine programme  from July to September 2021. Details of this arrangement are outlined in an update letter on contract arrangements for 2021/22 which also offers practices the voluntary opportunity to participate in two new enhanced services from 1 July 2021, backed by up to £50m of additional funding. The enhanced services focus on two areas which are a priority to support recovery from the pandemic: long Covid and weight management.

Design Framework published to help ICSs progression

NHS England and NHS Improvement has set out the next steps for development of integrated care systems with legislation expected to begin passage through Parliament before the summer. The Integrated Care Systems Design Framework has been published to support the ongoing progression and development of ICSs. All subject to legislation, it will help ICSs as they put in place the practical steps to prepare for their new functions that we expect to be enabled by legislation in this Parliamentary session. 

It's the first in a suite of guidance and resources to help systems over the coming months and is important that all areas of primary care engage with the proposed legislation. Read the document in full online.

Nikki and Ed

COVID-19 updates

Long term effects of COVID-19 and Post-COVID-19 syndrome

Since the beginning of the pandemic many patients have been complaining of symptoms persisting more than four weeks after initially falling ill with symptoms of COVID-19.

This eLearning module will introduce the key recommendations from the NICE/SIGN/RCGP guidance, post-COVID-19’s impact on patients and how to manage their symptoms and expectations in primary care. See also the new optional enhanced service for long COVID which provides up to £30 million to general practices to support professional education, training and pathway development that will enable management in primary care where appropriate and more consistent referrals to clinics for specialist assessment.

COVID-19 Vaccination Programme – workspace

General practice

Supporting your career as a GP

There is an interlocking suite of initiatives to support GPs throughout various stages of their careers. For your chance to hear more about these schemes, ask any questions, and hear from people already benefitting from them, please join us at our upcoming webinars:

• Oversight of GP Career Support offers - 21 July, 2pm - 3pm. Details of all the funded GP Primary Care support initiatives to help you understand which one could be right for you and an introduction to the brand new GP Career Support Hub, a one stop shop online space dedicated to providing you with information and signposting about a wide range of support available to help you realise a rewarding and fulfilling career. Please register here to attend.
• Support for mid-career GPs - 3 August, 2pm - 3pm. An overview of the differing support initiatives which could be available to you as a mid-career GP, helping to enhance your career in a way that suits you. This may be participating in funded mentorship training or hearing more about how we are supporting flexible working. Please register here to attend.

NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) – improving the referral experience

Next week referrers using e-RS will find the referral process simplified, as NHS Digital roll out a new summary screen and reduce the number of steps it takes to manage a patient’s referral.

This change is based on feedback from e-RS users that has generated a programme of improvements to make the service easier to navigate and more intuitive to ensure patients get the right care, in the right place, at the right time. 

Further improvements to referrer worklists and workflows are planned for later this year. More information is available on the NHS Digital website.  

General practice - latest updates

Primary care

Complaints collection

NHS Digital paused the collection of 2019/20 complaints information, also known as the KO14B form, from general and dental practices. This meant there was also no publication of data for the 2019/20 year. Recording, managing and resolving written complaints is an important part of modern service delivery and provides vital feedback for ongoing service improvement. NHSD have confirmed that collections will resume from the 9 August to capture complaints recorded in 2020/21.

In response to feedback through the GP bureaucracy review and the KO41b consultation exercise run by NHS Digital, several simplifying changes to the collection and return process have been made to help ease the burden on practices. This includes extending the collection window from six weeks to 12 weeks. This is a mandatory data collection and practices are asked to submit their returns by 30 October. Further details on the process and the changes can be found on the NHS Digital website.

If you are a practice manager or senior responsible person and are interested in attending some complaints handling training, a new free programme has been launched. To join a facilitated workshop, email england.complaints-training@nhs.net. Booking will commence from Friday, 18 June 2021.

Every Action Counts: Social Care resources now available

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) has adapted the NHS 'Every Action Counts' infection prevention and control resources for social care settings. The resources include posters, digital key cards and hints and tips, supporting compliance and awareness, leadership, morale and wellbeing, training and operational interventions. The Every Action Counts toolkit has also been adapted to support adult social care providers to use the resources effectively. The social care suite is available now.

CVD PREVENT to support primary care to address inequalities in CVD prevention

CVDPREVENT, a national audit supported by NHS Benchmarking Network and Public Health England, will enable GPs and primary care colleagues to identify priorities for improvement in cardiovascular disease prevention including inequalities in the management of high risk factors, highlighting the variation between different areas of England.

The work will be guided by a newly recruited patient panel. Read more about the work and hear about the latest updates on CVD Prevent from Shahed Ahmad, our National Clinical Director for CVD Prevention.

NHSX insights research

NHSX would like you to complete a short survey on how you think they are doing to digitally transform the NHS and social care. They’d like to hear from anyone in primary care working on health technology and digital services, or from GPs in leadership or management roles.

The research is conducted every quarter - if you have participated before, NHSX would like to hear from you again. It is conducted independently and is fully anonymous. Results will inform their ongoing engagement and communications with you. Please complete by Friday 2 July.

Dates for your diary

Wednesday 23 June, 1pm - 2.30pm. Dermatology Transformation Webinar

Wednesday 23 June, 1.30pm - 2.30pm. Social Prescribing: Culturally Competent Practice

Wednesday 23 June, 5.30pm - 7pm. Building and housing your primary care network team

Thursday 24 June. NHSX Innovation Collaborative Conference

Tuesday 29 June, 1pm - 2pm. Making Easy Read Materials

Tuesday 29 June, 2pm – 4pm. Webinars: From Niche to necessity: genomics in routine care

Tuesday 29 June, 6.30pm – 7.30pm. Using the Year of Care approach to personalised care and support planning to support people with long term conditions in a post COVID era

Tuesday 6 July, 2pm - 3pm. Making online meetings accessible for people with a learning disability and autistic people

Wednesday 7 July, 1pm – 2.30pm. Dermatology Transformation Webinar

Wednesday 7 July, 2pm – 3.30pm. Carer-friendly general practice

Link of the day

Cervical Screening Awareness Week 2021