An evening with Dame Rosie Winterton
Right Honourable Dame Rosie Winterton DBE is inviting you to meet to discuss local issues in health. Dame Rosie has been an MP for Central Doncaster for 26 years. She has held many offices including the Minister of State for Health and is the current Deputy Speaker for the House of Commons. The meeting will take place at 7pm on Thursday 13th July at the Doncaster Golf Club (278 Bawtry Road Bessacarr Doncaster South Yorkshire DN4 7NX). Due to restricted space, places are limited and will be given on a first-come first-served basis.
Email office@doncasterlmc.co.uk ASAP to reserve your place.
By Roger Harris – https://members.parliament.uk/member/390/portrait, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115480369
Support isolated people to self-refer for volunteer calls
People who would benefit from extra social contact can now self-refer for free ‘Check In and Chat’ phone calls from the NHS Volunteer Responders.
Primary care can directly refer (Request Support Services | Volunteer Responders (nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk) people with their consent. GP practices and pharmacies can order pre-printed posters and flyers (Promotional materials | Volunteer Responders (nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk) to promote self-referral. The ‘Check in and Chat’ service involves volunteers phoning patients for a friendly chat.
Where appropriate, they can encourage people to make positive changes and share information about other local services. People with additional vulnerabilities should be referred for Check in and Chat Plus to be linked with a DBS-checked volunteer.
Type 2 diabetes – structured education
Referral activity into the Healthy Living programme, within General Practice, which occurs in line with the indicator below counts towards The Quality and Outcomes Framework(QOF):
NM27: NICE Quality and Outcomes Framework indicator: The percentage of patients newly diagnosed with diabetes, on the register, in the preceding 1 April to 31 March who have a record of being referred to a structured education programme within 9 months after entry on to the diabetes register.
Actions taken by the GP to provide the self-referral webpage (using text, letter, leaflet,etc.) can be coded as “referred”. General Practices will need to code patient records upon referral with the correct codes to receive QOF payments.
Patients can register at the following link – Healthy Living
Download support documents – Healthy Living for people with type 2 diabetes
GP Registrars applying to join the National Performer List
GP Registrars are now required to apply for the National Performer List via PCSE Online. For a more efficient application journey, PCSE have put together a communication which details the documents that must be provided during the application process including helpful links. The communication can be found via this link. (GP Registrars- National Performer List Application (pcsengland.co.uk)
You can help them by ensuring that these documents are ready before applying:
- Enhanced DBS certificateIt is essential to provide either the DBS certificate or DBS tracking reference number when submitting the application in PCSE Online. The DBS certificate can be uploaded at a later date but the tracking reference number must be provided to evidence the certificate has been applied for.
- CV detailing full employment history from date of graduation, with no gaps
- Photo ID, e.g., passport or driving licence
- Graduation certificate
- Scanned copy of signature
- Appraisal information
- Police check – only applicable if resided or worked abroad in the last five years
GP contract changes guidance
Following the announcement of the GP contract changes for 2023/24, which were imposed on 1st April, the BMA have updated their guidance explaining what it means for practices. The changes are in the
following areas:
- Prospective record access
- Cloud-based telephony
- Removal of reference to medical cards in the patient registration provisions
- General practice pay declaration guidance
Note that the changes on ‘access to general practice services’ have not been laid before Parliament yet and ICBs will therefore not have sent contract variations to practices. This means the changes have not yet come into effect. The BMA will share further information on this imposed contractual change as soon as it is available.
The BMA are asking for practices’ feedback – evidence of the negative impact of imposed 23/24 contract changes
In their regular engagement sessions with LMCs, they have already heard of issues relating to unresourced increased costs for practices, e.g. relating to cloud-based telephony. They need to hear about these issues so they can be collated and shared with the DHSC and NHS England as a body of evidence against their ill-advised imposed changes. Please email your evidence, as well as any other feedback you may have, to feedback.gpcontractimposition@bma.org.uk
Read more about the 2023/24 GP contract changes on the BMA website GP contract changes England 2023/24 (bma.org.uk)
GP workload management and triage toolkit
As there is
currently no standardised triage system for GP practices, to help with the
increasing workload, the BMA have developed a tool Care navigation and triage in general practice (bma.org.uk) to support practices with implementing a
triage system if they wish to do so.
The toolkit
aims to provide a cost neutral aid to reduce the administrative burden on staff
members, ensure patients are seen by the right clinician at the right time and
allow GPs to spend their time where it is needed the most. This toolkit will
not apply to all practices, but the BMA have provided a number of case studies,
along with examples of how you can tailor the system to your practice.
Rollout of new death certification system postponed until April 2024
The statutory rollout of a new system requiring GPs to agree death certificates with a medical examiner has been postponed until April next year.
The system was meant to commence from this month, with the intention of medical examiners (MEs) providing independent scrutiny of all deaths in the community which are not taken to the coroner, but last month it was postponed indefinitely due to legal delays.
But, in a statement to Parliament, health minister Maria Caulfield confirmed the introduction will start from April 2024.
New GP access regulations
On 15 May, the new access regulations come into force for GMS and PMS contract-holders.
The BMA have developed guidance for practices to help them navigate this. GP access: meeting the reasonable needs of patients (bma.org.uk)
The key change practices need to be aware of is that patients cannot be asked to call back another day; instead, patients must be offered an appointment, offered “appropriate advice or care”, signposted to a service or resource, asked to provide further information, or informed as to when they will receive further information about the services that may be provided (having regard to urgency of clinical needs and other relevant circumstances).
Improving access to OH assessments for small businesses
The Department of Work and Pensions is looking to understand how individuals (employees or employers) currently seek GP support for health concerns or disabilities that are impacting them at work, and to explore views on how they could use these channels to raise awareness and signpost to a new service that provides occupational health assessments. The GP contract does not fund occupational health work and most GPs do not hold formal OH qualifications. This is extra work which places increased burden on already over-worked practices. DWP are looking for one or two GPs who could spend 30-45 minutes having a discussion with their researchers.
If you are able to help, please contact clayton.bull@engineering.digital.dwp.gov.uk who is the user researcher on the DWP team.
Patient Registrations – ‘Indeterminate’ Genders
When registering a patient, you have the option to record their gender as ‘Male’, ‘Female’ or ‘Indeterminate’. This information is used in NHS England’s screening programmes. If a patient is registered with their gender as ‘Indeterminate’, the default position is that the patient will be called for cervical screening. This may be inappropriate if the patient does not have a cervix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT-o32IiDYs
GP Bulletin
Read the last bulletin: GP contract changes guidance | looking after your wellbeing | new triage tool GP contract changes guidance | looking after your wellbeing | new triage toolkit (bma-mail.org.uk)
Sessional GPs Newsletter
Read the latest Sessional GPs newsletter Pay declaration guidance | coronation bank holiday | Scotland junior doctors’ ballot (ddlnk.net)
PCSE are hosting a webinar on Tuesday 6 June 6pm – 7pm to explain locum pension processes in detail and to show locums how easy it is to manage forms online. There will also be a Q&A session to answer any questions. Registration is via this link.
LMC Buying Group
Doncaster LMC is been a member of the LMC Buying Groups Federation. This means that practices can access the discounts the Buying Group has negotiated on a wide range of products and services. If you’re not sure what the Buying Group is all about then this short video explains what they do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FekMwFI5ILg.
By registering with the Buying Group: www.lmcbuyinggroups.co.uk/members/, you can view all the suppliers’ pricing, contact details and request quotes. The Buying Group also offers any member practice a free cost analysis which demonstrates how much money your practice could save just by swapping to buying group suppliers. Tel: 0115 979 6910 Email: info@lmcbuyinggroups.co.uk Website: www.lmcbuyinggroups.co.uk
