No images? Click here
Primary Care Bulletin - this week's round-up
5 May 2022
Dear colleagues,
Last night, HRH Prince Charles held a special reception in St. James’s Palace State departments to celebrate the work and achievement of community pharmacy teams in addressing the challenges of the past two years.
We would like to thank community pharmacy teams for the vital role you play as part of our NHS every day, continually ensuring your communities can access the pharmaceutical services they need and for also playing a critical role in delivering the largest vaccination programme in NHS history.
In other news, the NHS ConfedExpo is taking place from 15 – 16 June at the Liverpool ACC, and with the impact of COVID-19 still being felt, the implications for staff, elective care and so much more will be explored through a number of sessions with speakers from across the health and care sector.
Primary care will have several learning theatres, where smaller sessions will be delivered to share best practice on subjects including digital access, pharmacy integration (with GPs and pharmacists sharing their experiences) and MDT working within Primary Care Networks (PCNs). We are also involved in a health and wellbeing session, where we will be discussing the impact of the Looking After You coaching programme.
There will also be sessions and conversations on learning from COVID-19 and how to build patient and community voices into ICS thinking, redesigning care pathways across primary, community and secondary care and how ICSs and primary care can improve health outcomes through medicines optimisation.
You can register to attend online, with NHS and public sector staff eligible for free places. We hope to see you there.
Finally, next week is Mental Health Awareness Week (9 – 15 May), and the Mental Health Foundation’s recent research shows a significant increase in people feeling lonely and isolated, leading to harmful consequences. The Better Health – Every Mind Matters campaign is encouraging people to ‘Lift someone out of loneliness’.
The campaign offers NHS supported advice to help people who may be feeling lonely on the Every Mind Matters Loneliness webpage. It also encourages people to complete a Mind Plan quiz, to get personalised mental health action plan with practical tips. Resources are available in the Campaign Resource Centre to help support the campaign. Please signpost patients to this support if you feel it would help them.
Ursula and Kiren
Dr Ursula Montgomery
GP and Interim Director for Primary Care NHS England and NHS Improvement
Dr Kiren Collison
Deputy Medical Director for Primary Care NHS England and NHS Improvement
General practice
Reminder: patients do not need proof of address or identification to register in general practice
Registering with a GP and getting access to the holistic and person-centred care offered in general practice is often a life changing experience for many. For this reason, making registration as straightforward as possible is important. There are still some misunderstandings that documents have to be produced to register e.g. requesting to see photographic ID, such as a bus pass, driving licence or passport, and/or proof of address.
This is not the case, and we would encourage practices to consider how their registration process is accessible to all. This toolkit produced by Doctors of the World advises on how general practices can take concrete steps to improve equity of access to their services.
Become an Active Practice
Recent draft NICE guidelines recommending physical activity for osteoarthritis reminds us that promoting movement in primary care matters. When we walk the walk as well as talk the talk, we support our own health and inspire patients to make positive changes themselves. Join a network of surgeries proud to call themselves Active Practices by signing up to the RCGP Active Practice Charter – a simple way to improve wellbeing for staff and patients. The physical activity hub has everything you need to join in.
Becoming a UK visa sponsoring practice – webinar
If your practice is due to employ any newly qualified GPs this year you may need to consider applying to become a UK visa sponsoring practice. Almost half of GPs completing their training this year are international medical graduates. They have been trained by Health Education England and have spent at least three years working in the NHS. They have excellent English language skills and knowledge of the NHS ways of working, but most of them will need visa sponsorship if they are to continue working in England’s practices after they qualify.
The visa sponsorship process is straightforward and can be completed online. To support practices considering visa sponsorship, we are running an hour-long webinar about the process at 6pm on Monday 23 May which includes first-hand experience of the process from a practice manager.
Primary care
May Measurement Month
This month we are supporting the International Society for Hypertension’s May Measurement Month campaign, which raises awareness of the risks of high blood pressure and encourages people to get their blood pressure checked regularly. We have published various resources and developed communications to encourage people to ‘know their numbers’ and get their blood pressure checked in a community pharmacy to prevent heart attacks and stroke.
You can watch our video on the NHS blood pressure check service in community pharmacy, or our webinar recording on Future NHS. Also listen out for our radio broadcast across regional channels urging those over 40 who have not had their blood pressure checked or been previously identified as having hypertension or a related condition; to access the service.
Blog: World Asthma Day: tackling climate change and improving respiratory care
This blog from Dr Veena Aggarwal, Chief Sustainability Officer's Clinical Fellow in Primary Care, NHS England and NHS Improvement, highlights the work we are doing to improve asthma outcomes while at the same time reducing the environmental impact of inhaler prescribing. In this blog, you can find information about our policies, ways in which clinicians can implement these changes, and the resources that are available to help with improving practice.
Introduction to PCC Support for GP Community Pharmacist Consultation Service
PCC are hosting a one hour webinar to introduce you to the national support PCC is providing to primary care networks (PCNs) and individual practices as you start to deliver the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service and as you build to increasing your referrals. It will give an overview of CPCS, share learning from where the service is working well and offer top tips for getting going.
Share your views to help shape future veterans mental and physical health services in England
We’ve launched a survey to find out people’s views of veterans mental and physical health services. The information gathered will be used to inform the development and provision of these services, in particular Op COURAGE: The Veterans Mental Health and Wellbeing Service and the Veterans Trauma Network. Anyone can share their views, however, we are particularly keen to hear from veterans and their families and carers, as well as those providing care and support to them. The survey closes on 22 May 2022.
Patients In North and North East Cumbria with chronic conditions offered personalised care through Population Health Management (PHM)
As part of the national PHM Development Programme, Valens PCN identified a cohort of 34 people who were struggling with issues affecting their health such as finance, housing, mood and lifestyle. The patients, aged 35 to 55 with at least one chronic health condition and co-morbid depression, were proactively contacted by a social prescribing link worker to ask if there were any environmental factors preventing them from successfully managing their conditions. Read more or join the PHM Academy to see the full PHM case study series including short reads and infographics on a range of PHM projects across the country.
Upcoming events and webinars
April – May. Core20PLUS5 - reducing healthcare inequalities series covering the five clinical priority areas outlined within the Core20PLUS5 approach.
May – June. CPCS training for practices - Leading change
April – June. Community Pharmacist Consultation Service training for practices
April – June. Demand and Capacity series designed to help gain a deeper and practical understanding of what demand and capacity are and the consequent issues that occur.
April – July. Public Participation online learning sessions about working with people and communities.
6 May, 3pm – 4.30pm. Severe mental illness webinar: Core20PLUS5 - reducing healthcare inequalities
10 May, 12pm - 1pm. Evaluating the pilot implementation of Proactive Care Framework
11 – 12 May. NHS Big Conversation for Improvement
11 May, 1.30pm – 2.30pm. Approaches to multi-disciplinary team working, for managing complexity and caseload
17 May, 10am -11.30am. Making a difference to young people’s lives through personalised care
18 May, 2pm – 3pm. May's Wellbeing Wednesday community event
18 May, 5pm – 6pm. Delivering Enhanced Access Services
19 May, 6pm – 9pm. Welcome to General Practice – event for GP trainees
19 May, 7pm – 9pm. Inclusive Pharmacy Practice: Population Health Management webinar for Community Pharmacy Professionals
23 May, 6pm – 7pm. Becoming a UK visa sponsoring practice
30 May, 3pm – 4pm. Partnerships with people and communities in primary care: The art of the possible
1 June, 3pm – 4pm. Working with health inclusion groups in primary care: What to consider
Link of the week
