Primary Care Bulletin

20 October 2022

Dear colleagues,

Supporting the health and wellbeing of our workforce is critically important at any time, and especially so this winter given the likely operational pressures which the NHS will face.

Support is available for you and your teams, including the new self-check tool, which can provide you with further information on the range of support offers that are available and help you to identify what option is the right one for you to access. There is free and confidential support for your mental health through staff mental health hubs and coaching, physical health support, financial support and training for line managers in having safe and effective wellbeing conversations.

Last year, NHS England announced a no cost time-limited offer for general practice to use MS Teams to make outbound only calls independently of existing telephone solutions. There are around 31,000 licenses still available for practices/PCNs to use to support improved access over the winter period. To take up this offer to support access this winter please email necsu.adtelephony@nhs.net by Friday 5 November.

Benefits include: retaining your current telephony supplier and number for incoming calls; an increase in telephone capacity at no additional cost to practices; outbound calls from cloud-based functionality via Microsoft Teams; and the ability to call from any device where the Teams app is installed, supporting remote working.

Finally, thank you to all our teams in general practice and community pharmacy who are hard at work providing both Covid booster and flu vaccinations to those who are eligible. Approximately 26 million people are eligible for an autumn COVID-19 booster, while as many as 33 million people can get an annual flu jab this winter.

Ursula and Kiren

General practice

Patient online access to GP records from November – safeguarding guidance

There are now two weeks until most patients with online accounts (including through the NHS App and other patient apps) will automatically be able to view new entries in their health records.

Access to records is appropriate for the vast majority of patients, but to prepare for switch-on, practices have been asked to identify and safeguard patients who could be at risk of harm from having automatic access.

Early adopter sites have typically applied the 104 SNOMED code to 1-5% of patients. They have also shared good practice and tools to identify potentially at-risk patients. Should practices see challenges with providing necessary safeguards they should contact their commissioner for further guidance.

Invitation to participate: AoMRC Review of General Practice – Hospital Interface

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) has been asked by NHS England to undertake a rapid review of the interface between general practice and hospitals to identify improvements in the way clinicians work together to deliver better patient care. The review will culminate in a report containing actionable and practical changes that can be replicated and implemented in either setting

The Academy is looking for real-life examples of general practice and hospital services working together to improve the patient journey. Primary care clinical colleagues are invited to participate in this review by submitting their ideas, examples and thoughts to the Academy by emailing psci@aomrc.org.uk.

Community pharmacy

NHS Profile Manager tutorial videos

The NHS Profile Manager is a digital tool that combines the NHS website profile editor and the Directory of Services (DoS) Profile Updater, making it easier and more convenient to update pharmacy information. NHS Digital has published new NHS Profile Manager video tutorials on YouTube that pharmacy teams can refer to for guidance.

Primary care

NHS Community Pharmacy Blood Pressure Check service data now available on Shape website

Data on community pharmacies providing the NHS Community Pharmacy Blood Pressure Check Service aligned to the Index of Multiple Deprivation profiles, is now available on the Shape Atlas tool. The data includes the number of patients seen monthly, the monthly change and the cumulative number of patients seen since the launch of the advanced service in October 2021. 

Commissioners, pharmacists, general practitioners and public health professionals and their teams can use the data to work together to target the populations most at risk of CVD morbidity and mortality, to design and implement services to help identify more people with undiagnosed hypertension and reduce health inequalities.

Research to understand how referrals are made

NHS electronic referral service (e-RS) are doing some research to understand how referrals are made by pharmacists, dentists and optometrists. They want to understand how referrals are managed between the referring clinician and the patient’s registered GP and want to talk to pharmacists, dentists and optometrists or their teams for a remote one-to-one conversation for one hour. Sessions are taking place until Friday 4 November, from 11am – 5pm.  

Findings will help make improvements to NHS e-RS and associated services. If you’re interested in taking part please contact Abdur Rahman at abdur.rahman5@nhs.net.

Supporting annual health checks for people with a learning disability

Thank you to our primary care colleagues, who are making reasonable adjustments so that people with a learning disability are comfortable getting their annual health check - watch Charlotte getting hers and a health action plan at her general practice. Annual health checks can improve the health of someone with a learning disability by spotting problems earlier and can help to reduce health inequalities. Read more about the benefits of annual health checks.

Greener Practice Trainee forum 

Greener Practice, the UK’s primary care sustainability network, has created a GP Trainee forum to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas on sustainable healthcare between GP Trainees. All are welcome, no prior knowledge of the area required to join. The forum will be established as a WhatsApp group, and may also host meetings on topics of interest. 

Case studies: Flexible working in primary care

Six in-depth case studies of GP practices across England have been published by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), showcasing several successful strategies to implement flexible working practices. The study explored how these practices approached the challenges of designing and implementing flexible work designs and job crafting to meet the increase in patient demands, ensuring that individual staff needs, and the wider practice, can be balanced.

Case study: Improving health outcomes for respiratory patients while reducing carbon emissions

Inhalers are a key treatment for respiratory conditions, with approximately 60 million dispensed in England every year. However, inhalers are not always used in an optimal way, which can lead to poor disease control and avoidable deaths. Read how Wyre Forest Health Partnership (WFHP) identified that, in line with the UK, they too had high prescribing rates for metered dose inhalers, and decided to act – to improve the health of their respiratory patients, while reducing their environmental impact.

NHS publishes Genomics Strategy to transform patient care

The Accelerating Genomic Medicine in the NHS Strategy sets out the ambition of the NHS to embed genomics, the study of the genes in our DNA, their function and how they impact our health, in routine care to continue to transform outcomes for patients across a growing number of clinical areas. The Strategy was unveiled by Amanda Pritchard in her keynote speech at the inaugural NHS Genomics Healthcare Summit in London.

Course: Physical Health Care for People with Severe Mental Illness

Maudsley Learning is running a free, national half-day online course as part of the strategy to improve physical health care outcomes in individuals with severe mental illness. This theory-focused and interactive course is aimed at clinical practitioners in primary care and will provide an overview of systemic barriers and how practical adaptions can be implemented to ensure the physical health needs of individuals with serious mental health illness are met.

Upcoming events and webinars

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

Various dates, October – November. NHS Jobs engagement events and training sessions

20 October, 5pm – 6.30pm. Primary Care health and wellbeing engagement event - Flexibility in Primary Care

26 October, 2pm – 3pm. Inclusive HWB Community of Practice - supporting the HWB of ethnic minority staff

1 and 29 November, 12.30pm – 2pm. Safe, Reliable Processes I and II

1 November, 9.30am – 4pm. 10 Steps to working with people and communities

1 November, 1pm – 2pm. Primary Care Discussions: Medication Safety in Primary Care

2 November, 12.30pm – 1.30pm. Lunch and Learn: Reducing Barriers to Speaking Up

3 November, 1pm – 2pm. RightCare stroke webinar

4 November, 1pm – 2pm. GPN National Update: monthly webinar

8 November, 12pm - 1.15pm. Community Nursing: getting started with Population Health Management

8 November, 12.30pm - 1.30pm. Moving forward in paediatric critical care

9 November, 1pm – 2.30pm. Supporting Link Worker Well-being   

9 November, 9am – 5pm. Primary care conference 2022

10 November, 11am – 12pm. RightCare Respiratory webinar

10 November, 12.30pm – 1.30pm. Conversation Session for GPs on the use of the Dementia toolkit

16 November, 10.30am – 12pm. Supporting our NHS people to reach out and help create a civil and respectful work culture

16 November, 2pm – 3pm. Wellbeing Wednesday: Winter Wellness

Catch-up

Missed a recent webinar? You can view some recordings below: 

• Watch our series of General Practice webinars 
• Watch our series of Primary Care Network webinars