Primary Care Bulletin - this week's round-up

7 January 2022

Dear colleagues,

Happy new year!

We would like to congratulate our primary care colleagues who have been recognised in the 2022 New Year’s Honours List for their extraordinary achievements. 

Reporting Covid-19 outbreaks, staff absence and service status

With the continued challenges and enduring pressures, we want to remind colleagues of the requirement and importance of reporting COVID-19 outbreaks and ensuring the NHS 111 Directory of Services (DoS) is updated to ensure patients are appropriately signposted to available services.

It is essential that providers inform their local commissioner when the delivery of services is compromised or reduced by staff absences, whether or not attributed to a Covid-19 outbreak, in line with local reporting and escalation processes in order to support service continuity and resilience plans. Your commissioner will work with you to find resolutions during these challenging times.

Community pharmacies and dental practices should have direct access to update their DoS profiles using the DoS Profile Updater. This includes changes to opening hours and temporary closures. The changes are visible within 10 minutes. There is also a DoS Capacity Status tool where providers can mark themselves red, amber or green in terms of capacity. You can request changes via your local DoS lead if you do not usually update your own profile.

General practices can request changes through their CCG if they don’t update their own profile directly. Further guidance for general practices on updating DoS is available on the NHS England website.

NHS England and NHS Improvement is working at pace to refine the COVID-19 staff absence tracker so that all primary care contractors can commence absence reporting via this platform from next week (further information to follow).

Nikki and Ed

COVID-19 updates

COVID-19 treatments  

The roll-out of neutralising monoclonal antibodies (nMABs) and antiviral treatments for patients at the highest risk of severe disease and hospitalisation from COVID-19 began in December. Potentially eligible patients have now been made aware of how they can access the treatments. Information for GPs – including how to refer potentially eligible patients – is available in this letter. Patients can also find information about these treatments on the NHS website.

New guidance has been developed to support frontline clinicians with the assessment, monitoring and treatment of patients who present to general practice with symptomatic COVID-19.

There may be local variation in the pathways to access community monitoring and therapeutics. This guidance aims to provide a high-level overview on which patients are eligible, as well as information on how to support your patients to access these interventions.

Separately, the Government has begun the PANORAMIC national study for oral antivirals treatment for at-risk patients. The study will allow medical experts to gather further data on the potential benefits of oral antivirals for the UK’s predominately vaccinated population. Those over the age of fifty or are particularly vulnerable to Covid can sign up to the national study and there is further information for GPs on how to participate.

Report and improvement tool that highlights opportunities for CVD Prevention now available

NHS Benchmarking has now published the first report from the CVDPREVENT audit. This report highlights national opportunities for improvement in CVD prevention and treatment of high-risk CVD conditions using data from GP systems. Read more on the summary of findings.

In addition to the report, a Data and Improvement Tool is also available which will enable PCNs and GP practices to identify groups who could benefit most from quality improvement activity locally, and data can be compared against national and local benchmarks, which can be broken down by demographics.

This first report presents analysis of GP recorded data for relevant patient cohorts up to March 2020 and therefore, provides a pre-pandemic baseline for indicators of CVD prevention. The second annual report will cover data to March 2021 and will be published in summer 2022, with biannual updates to follow. Please visit the CVDPREVENT website for more information. 

COVID-19 Vaccination Programme – workspace

General practice

Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) Local will reduce administration time for commissioners and primary care providers

CQRS Local is a newly launched online payment claim system used by commissioners, GP’s, and primary care providers to support the management and payment of Local Incentive Schemes. The system will make payments without the need for GP practices to submit invoices, following the approval of a claim.

The onboarding process is simple, with ongoing support and training in place for all staff and users. CQRS Local is being led by the CSU Collaborative.

For information, please visit the website or email: support@cqrs.co.uk. You can learn more by registering for an engagement event on 14 January 2022.

General practice - latest updates

Community pharmacy

Resources for Weight Management Health Campaign 2022

The Better Health Weight Management campaign is scheduled to run from January 2022 and forms part of the mandated health campaigns we have agreed for 2021-2022 with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC).

Community pharmacies will receive printed resources, from the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities, via Yodel between 11-14 January 2022. If packs are not received by 15 January 2022, please email: partnerships@phe.gov.uk with ‘Weight Management Pharmacy Packs’ in the subject line and the pharmacy name and address in the email. 

The resource packs will include a guidance leaflet to support community pharmacy teams’ conversations with patients and display materials. Further information, social media and digital resources will also be available on the Campaign Resource Centre. This campaign will run for 5 weeks from receipt of the resource packs, ending by 18 February 2022.

Primary care

Healthcare evidence and knowledge now a simple search away

The new, Health Education England funded NHS Knowledge and Library Hub, is a ‘one-stop’ gateway which, for the first time nationally, connects NHS staff and learners seamlessly to a significant range of free, high-quality knowledge and evidence resources, services, tools and databases, all in one place.

Content of the easy-to-use platform includes over 7,000 journals, e-books - including OUP handbooks, clinical decision support tools - such as BMJ Best Practice, NICE pathways and guidelines and clinical and medical databases.

Accessed via OpenAthens, users will be able to tap into the same system wherever their career takes them. Start your search or learn more through our short user guides.

Upcoming events and webinars

January – March 2022 (multiple dates). CPCS workshops with RPS & RCGP

13 January, 5pm – 6pm. General Practice webinar

17 January, 12pm – 1pm. Best practice: health and social care working with people experiencing homelessness

18 January, 10am – 11.30am. Personal health budget community of practice

18 January, 12pm – 1pm. Honour-based Abuse, Child Marriage and Virginity Testing

19 January, 12pm – 1pm. Transitional Safeguarding

19 January, 1.30pm – 2.30pm. Social Prescribing Link Worker Learning and Development Webinar Series: Tackling Health Inequalities

20 January, 12pm – 1pm. Sexual abuse and assault

21 January, 12pm – 1pm. Online Abuse by Staff with Indecent Images

2 February, 9am – 12pm. Digital Health Innovation Collaborative – free online event

Link of the Week

COVID-19 vaccinations team visit Thorney Bay caravan park in Canvey