Primary Care Bulletin

8 September 2022

Dear colleagues,

With many children returning to or starting primary school this week, it’s a good time to remind parents and carers to check their children are up to date with their routine vaccinations and if not to come forward to book their appointments. We have produced a communications pack for GP practices to use and tailor as they feel appropriate to supplement what they are already doing (we know for example in London, where there is currently a focus on polio, the approach may differ). The pack contains a range of communications materials including a template letter and text message, website copy, social media assets and FAQs.

This Saturday (10 September) marks World Suicide Prevention Day, and we want to remind colleagues working across general practice, community pharmacy, dentistry and optometry of the support available. Our Looking After You Too coaching provides a safe space to talk about whatever is on your mind with an experienced coach. The coaching is confidential and thousands of primary care colleagues have benefited from one-to-one support.

Staff mental health and wellbeing hubs are also available, providing confidential and rapid access to local services, offering such things as talking therapy, counselling, and referrals to Practitioner Health. Direct self-referrals to Practitioner Health are possible for doctors, dentists and those working at grade 8d without needing to go through the mental health and wellbeing hubs.

Ursula and Kiren

Key updates including COVID-19

COVID-19 and Flu vaccination updates

Please continue to support children and young people who are at higher risk of being very unwell from COVID-19 to receive any outstanding vaccinations they may be due. Parents and carers are being sent reminder invitations about their child’s COVID vaccine status.

A communications toolkit and promotion resources have been produced to support conversations and promote uptake of the COVID-19 and Flu vaccinations in preparation for winter. These are available on the Campaign Resource Centre and CommsLink FutureNHS space to download.

We also recently wrote to vaccination providers asking for prioritisation of housebound people, in line with final JCVI guidance of 15 August. The general practice Enhanced Service specification states that a £10 payment (in addition to the £10.06 vaccination administration fee) will be payable where a patient is considered to be housebound.

If a GP practice is signed up to Phase 5, they should vaccinate their housebound patients, or make alternative arrangements. If they are not signed up, they should work with their local commissioner to ensure all their housebound patients are vaccinated.

Claiming financial incentives for autumn vaccination of care homes

A financial incentive is available up until 23 October to general practice and community pharmacy providers to prioritise the COVID-19 vaccination of care home residents in both older adult care homes and non-older adult care homes.

Thank you to those who have already commenced visits. Please note that, to claim the incentive payment teams will need to complete a short live-time survey, setting out how many residents have been vaccinated and how many have declined, or where a personalised care adjustment applies (for example, where there is a clinical reason that a patient cannot be vaccinated). The live time survey must be completed within 48 hours of the visit to claim the incentive.

General practice

Updating configuration settings ahead of patients accessing online records

There are now just 8 weeks until patients with online accounts, such as through the NHS App (or other patient online apps), will be able to view new entries in their health records. Immediate action is required by general practices to ensure that they are ready for the planned change on 1 November 2022, and that their clinical system is updated to allow prospective (future) record access to patients.

Clinical system suppliers (EMIS and TPP) have identified the need for general practices to update their organisation (global) settings for online services. In order for patients to receive online access to their prospective (future) records from 1 November, as set out in the letter to general practice staff in July, this needs to be updated manually by the individual practice (as data controller) before this date.

Detailed instructions, including guidance for your practice, can be found on the NHS Digital website.

Friends and Family Test

All GP practices should now be making the Friends and Family Test (FFT) available to patients who want to give quick, easy, and anonymous feedback, which can be used to identify good practice and opportunities for improvement. Full guidance is available, setting out the requirements including the new improved standard question. Any practices that need help or advice about the FFT can contact the helpdesk.

General Practice Improvement Leads Programme

Applications are open for the General Practice Improvement Leads programme, starting in November 2022. More than 600 people have completed this six-day nationally accredited personal development programme for those working in general practice. Participants gain skills and confidence in using quality improvement tools and techniques for redesigning services and leading colleagues and teams through change.

The programme, which is fully funded, will be held in person in Leeds and applicants must bring a small-scale improvement challenge to work on. Places are offered on a first come, first served basis to those eligible. Find out more and apply, or for any queries, please email england.capabilityt4c@nhs.net.

Register with a GP Surgery service – get involved

At last week’s General Practice Webinar (1 September), an update and demo of the ‘Register with a GP Surgery’ service was provided, which you can watch online. For practices wishing to find out more or interested in participating in the pilot, please email: england.register-gp-surgery.support@nhs.net.

You can also visit our dedicated resource hub for more information, including practice testimonials.

1,300 GP practices are using CQRS Local to submit their claims

Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) Local is an online payment claim system already used by commissioners and GP practices.

Whilst commissioners must buy into the system, it is the practices who will be using it to submit their claims to obtain payment for locally commissioned schemes.

There are now 19 commissioners and over 1,300 GP practices who are actively using CQRS Local. If you would like to submit your manual claims online, please contact your commissioner and request a product demo: support@cqrs.co.uk or call 0330 124 4039.

Community pharmacy

Career pathways and progression for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians

Health Education England (HEE) is launching a pilot study to map training, development, and career progression pathways for pharmacy professionals. The objective is to understand how pharmacy professionals are deployed, what training they currently have access to and where the gaps are – to inform future investment in education commissioning.

A representative demographic cross-section of the pharmacy workforce will be included in this study, which will take place in the Midlands and East of England NHS regions. The first phase of the pilot will include a survey, which will go live week commencing 12 September. For more information, please contact: pharmacyteam@hee.nhs.uk.

Optometry

Free Continuing Professional Development (CPD) events

To assist contractors and performers claim the appropriate fees for GOS in England, the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) has put together a General Optical Council (GOC) approved interactive CPD presentation. The CPD presentation will be delivered in online sessions across various dates and times in September and October and is free of charge. For more information and to book a place on one of the online sessions, visit the NHSBSA’s free CPD events webpage.

Primary care

Polypharmacy Action Learning Set for GPs and Prescribers

Join the National AHSN Polypharmacy Programme evidence based Polypharmacy Action Learning Set (ALS) to help build GP and prescribing health care professionals confidence in, and understanding of, the complex issues surrounding stopping inappropriate medicines safely. 

The ALS will also help PCNs deliver the medicines optimisation elements of the new Directed Enhanced Services contract and contributes to the IIF. The ALS is a series of three workshops on 28 September, 12 October, and 2 November. Find out more and register online.

#AskAboutAsthma week – 12-18 September

#AskAboutAsthma week encourages children, young people, and their families to understand how to best manage their asthma. Healthy London Partnership (HLP) has developed a communications toolkit for Primary Care colleagues containing social media assets, bulletin copy and campaign posters. For more information about the campaign, visit the HLP website.

Throughout the campaign week there will be daily podcasts, blogs, short videos and social media activity, as well as webinars and a one-day virtual conference – find more details and sign up to attend.

Organisations invited to express their interest in hosting an NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network 

From April 2024, the NIHR Clinical Research Network will become the NIHR Research Delivery Network.

The whole of England will be supported through 12 NIHR Regional Research Delivery Networks (RRDNs) which will support research sites to deliver viable, inclusive research studies efficiently.

NHS trusts, Integrated Care Boards, primary care organisations and other organisations providing support services to the NHS are eligible to apply and should complete an expression of interest by midnight on 2 October 2022. Only organisations that do so will be invited to submit an application. More information about the RRDNs is available online.

The NHS Innovation Accelerator (NIA) welcomes new applicants 

The NIA is an Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) initiative supporting individuals to scale their evidence-based innovations across the NHS. Individuals from all backgrounds are invited to apply with innovations that align with the NHS Core20Plus5 manifesto, elective recovery and operational challenges post-pandemic. Please encourage your networks to apply before the 28 October 2022.   

Fundamentals of Change and Improvement - October 2022

Apply to join the nationally accredited Fundamentals of Change and Improvement programme to learn how to apply quality improvement tools and techniques to help you tackle a range of challenges in your practice or PCN, such as improving document workflow, making changes to your appointments system or your referrals process. 

The next programme will be held virtually over two sessions taking place on 6 and 20 October. You’ll need to bring a specific process or system to work actively on. The closing date for applications is 19 September 2022 (earlier if oversubscribed). For any enquiries, please email: england.capabilityt4c@nhs.net.

Upcoming events and webinars

Various dates, September – December. Public participation online learning programme 

Various dates in September. Environment - NHS Net Zero webinar series 

12 September, 12.30pm – 1.30pm. Priorities for Long COVID 

14 September, 1pm – 2.30pm. Faith organisations and social prescribing  
 
15 September, 12.30pm – 2pm. Long COVID interventional research studies 

21 September, 2pm - 4pm. CVDPREVENT: Using data to drive system change 

22 September, 2pm, – 3.15pm. Discharge Medicines Service - Strategic Look Ahead  

27 September, 11am – 12.30pm. FeNO learning collaborative meeting  

28 September, 11am – 12.30pm. Super Skills: It's a Kinda Magic -  creatively engaging and connecting with people

28 September, 1pm – 2.30pm. Commissioning of social prescribing and community support  

4 October, 9.30am – 4.10pm. Every breath you treat - understanding the impact of air pollution across the life course 

5 October, 1pm – 2pm. Using GIRFT’s best practice pathway and guidance to improve care for children with abdominal pain  
 
12 October, 9am – 5.15pm. NHS Genomics healthcare summit 

Link of the Week

Supporting trans patients: a guide for staff at the GP surgery