COVID-19 Primary Care bulletin

13 May 2020

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

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for all your efforts so far in implementing and managing support for care homes. A letter has been sent to CCGs reminding teams to identify a named clinical lead for each CQC-registered care home in their area this week; a situation report will be collected by tonight to ensure universal coverage. This clinician will provide clinical leadership for the primary care and community health services support to the care home, and take responsibility for the co-ordination of the service provision.

The clinical lead may be drawn from general practice or the community health service provider and may be a job share arrangement. For further information contact your NHS England and NHS Improvement Regional team.

Thank you also for the additional efforts made to support the additional Bank Holiday provision last week and over Easter. We can confirm, as announced on our webinars last week, that we anticipate treating 25th May as a normal Bank Holiday. This is dependent and conditional on local arrangements being made as normal to provide cover.

And finally a reminder to submit any questions you have for Thursday's general practice webinar in advance using this online form. We also encourage you to 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

General practice

#LookingAfterYouToo: individual coaching support for primary care staff
This coaching offer has generated considerable interest since launch on 24 April, with 570 bookings and 190 coaching sessions having taken place by 11 May.  Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with almost all respondents saying that they had felt listened to and that the session had enabled them to move forward and with comments such as:

“This session made a huge difference to me and I am very grateful.”
“I found the conversation to be really helpful and my coach gave me some tangible things to do to help me deal with the situation we were discussing.”
“My coach was encouraging and managed the session well to ensure it was of benefit throughout and achieving what I was aiming for.”
“It has galvanised me from a dark place - and allowed me to start sifting the wood from the trees.  All good.”
“I am so grateful for this support. My coach was kind and empathetic, and I was amazed how much we achieved in just 45 minutes.”
“Discussed some useful tips to use in certain scenarios that I think may help me.”

Dr Mike Holmes, Vice-Chair of RCGP and leader of their wellbeing group, has worked with us to co-create this offer and has created a vlog.

A reminder that this coaching service is open to ALL frontline primary care workforce, clinical and non-clinical and whether directly employed by the NHS or working on an NHS contract. To find out more and book a 1:1 coaching session at a time and in a way that suits you, go to the Look After You Too webpage.

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

Community pharmacy

Life Assurance Scheme extended to cover pharmacy teams
Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, Keith Ridge has thanked colleagues across national pharmacy organisations and the profession as a whole for their support in helping to ensure the community pharmacy team is eligible for the new NHS and social care coronavirus life assurance scheme, announced by the Government on 27 April 2020. This provides life assurance benefits for eligible NHS and social care staff who are performing frontline work during the COVID-19 pandemic and includes: registered pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, dispensing assistants and medicine counter assistants. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Association of Pharmacy Technicians in the UK have published a joint statement.

Examples of good practice
The General Pharmaceutical Council has identified over 60 examples of how pharmacies are meeting their professional standards during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the examples on the Knowledge Hub.

Dentistry

On 10 May 2020, the Prime Minister announced the conditional plan to ease restrictions.  All dental guidance and Standard Operating Procedures currently in force remain unchanged. The temporary cessation of routine dentistry addresses the safety of patients and of dental teams as well as supporting the public health measures required to slow community transmission of COVID-19.  This advice has not changed.

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

Optometry

On 10 May 2020, the Prime Minister announced the conditional plan to ease restrictions.  All optical guidance remains unchanged. The temporary cessation of routine optical services addresses the safety of patients and of optical teams as well as supporting the public health measures required to slow community transmission of COVID-19.  This advice has not changed.

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

Community care

Care home connectivity
During COVID-19, care providers are utilising digital technology to protect the health and wellbeing of vulnerable residents.Technology is enabling amongst other things, video consultations with health professionals and ordering of prescriptions as well as supporting residents to talk with loved ones. To further support the technology,  NHSX and NHS Digital have negotiated and published on the NHSX website a range of internet connection offers with telecom companies. This is complemented by two new pieces of guidance; choosing an internet connection for your care home and how to use digital services in your care home.

General information 

Risk Reduction Framework for NHS staff at risk of COVID-19 infection
The Risk Reduction Framework for BAME staff has now been published and can be viewed here on the FOM website.

Dying Matters Awareness Week
It’s Dying Matter Awareness Week and the focus this year is all about listening. As health professionals we are often faced with the issue of death and dying. It goes without saying that this is a difficult time for many of us at the moment, especially if you have experienced the loss of a patient or indeed a loved one. It is so important that we feel able to support our patients with their concerns and listen when they need us. But it is equally important that we too feel able to share our own experiences of death and dying, and be heard, The Dying Matters website offers a range of resources and information on how to support patients with death and dying and advice on how to open up conversations. Follow the hashtag #DyingToBeHeard this week for more updates. The NHS Staff Support Line is also available.

Dates for your diary 

Wednesday 13 May 1-2pm - Digital Nurse Network, Webinar Thirteen will look at video consultations and network updates. Helen Crowther RN and Ann Gregory RN, Clinical Nurse Advisors at NHSX are joined by Alison Taylor RN who is leading on a project putting devices into care homes to allow residents to connect with their families during COVID19. We will also be discussing video consultations to manage Long Term Conditions and minor illnesses in primary care. Book to join online. Direct link to the LIVE webinar is here. Click 5 minutes before the session to join.

Wednesday 13 May 1.30-2.30pm - Starting out as a social prescribing link worker. This webinar aims to help new link workers understand the basics of their social prescribing link worker roles within PCNs.

Thursday 14 May 5-6pm GP webinar with Nikki and Ed

Thursday 14 May 8-9pm PCPA webinar: Managing COVID in Care Homes - Delivering Care

To catch up on previous primary care webinars visit Future NHS.

Nikki and Ed's link of the day

Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by occupation, England and Wales: deaths registered up to and including 20 April 2020. This is the provisional analysis of deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by different occupational groups, among males and females aged 20 to 64 years in England and Wales.