Focus on New Tax Brackets

The “Focus on new tax brackets” guidance has been revised and a spreadsheet added which illustrates the financial implications of taking on a salaried GP. Please also note the addition of the Mazars LLP letter report and the General Practitioners Defence Fund Limited (GPDF) disclaimer, both of which are integral to a proper understanding of this guidance and of its accompanying schedules, which are presented for illustrative purposes only. Note that this guidance may have to be revised again after the emergency budget has been announced on 22 June.

Patient Survey and Calculating Eligibility for QOF PE7 & PE8

Full details of the Patient Survey results can be found here. PCTs will now use the patient access data in the survey for calculating practice payments under the QOF. As part of the H1N1 vaccination DES, those practices that meet the minimum target for vaccinations will receive a 10 per cent drop in the upper – and 20 per cent in the lower – thresholds in PE7 and PE8. Practices should be aware that the ImmForm Swine Flu data extraction programme, which has been used to assess uptake levels for the QOF easements, calculates the denominator on the age of the eligible patient population at the date of extraction, rather than the age of the patients at the time of vaccination. This is likely to have a minor impact on the number of patients in the six months age range because those who were previously not eligible, will now appear as eligible. This is not expected to be a large number and will mainly impact on those practices that are close to the 50.7 per cent target. Practices who do not believe that the figures are an accurate reflection of their eligible patient population can, with the agreement of their PCT, perform a manual calculation to work out if they have qualified for the patient experience easements. Practices can use the data extraction report as a template to perform this calculation. An example of the report and details of the formula to be used, are available in annex 4, page 15 of the H1N1 vaccination DES guidance, available here.

Tees Suicide Prevention & Confidential Death (Suicide) Inquiry

In order to address the high suicide rates in Tees (some of the highest in the country) the PCTs have appointed David Robinson in a new role of Confidential Deaths Inquiry Coordinator (Suicide). David will carry out confidential inquiries into suicide and undetermined deaths for the Tees wide area and be the single point of contact for you on this area to aid a coordinated approach to improving this terrible issue in Tees. We urge practices to work with David as there will be real benefit for everyone in understanding these deaths better. The purpose is not to repeat an inquest but to understand more so interventions can be put in place to help prevent it from happening again. You can follow the links below to a number of PCT documents providing background on this and you will find a sample questionnaire here. We appreciate that the questionnaire does appear long but can reassure that we are talking very small numbers and not all sections need to be completed so it should not be too onerous. David will be contacting Practice Managers shortly to provide further details and discuss resources to support practices with this. He will then work with Practice Managers on an individual basis when a specific case comes up as some practices may (hopefully) never have a case that touches on this.

• Suicide inquiry introductory letter from Peter Kelly (PCT)
• Summary of work re suicide prevention
• Draft protocol suicide inquiry

Interim Seniority Figures

Please note that the Technical Steering Committee has published the Interim Seniority Factors for GMS GPs in England for 2010/11. The figures are £95,802 for England. Further details are available here.

National Diabetes Audit

The National Diabetes Audit Executive Summary and the Paediatric Report are available here. This will be the fourth year where an automated data extraction is available to gather data for the audit. As in previous years, the audit keeps identifiable data to a minimum and has NIGB Ethics and Confidentiality Committee approval to hold and link patient level data (using NHS number). All the analysis is produced at aggregated level for GP practice, PCT or SHAs. As part of the extract process the Information Centre will write to every GP practice to let them know that the audit extract will be taking place, how to participate without the automated extract and the key dates for the audit period. Practices should expect to receive this letter shortly.

Pandemic Flu, CMO ‘1 Year on’ Letter

The Chief Medical Officer has sent this letter to the profession reviewing the H1N1 influenza pandemic a year after the first cases were reported.

Vetting & Barring Scheme Update

This update will provide further update on the halted vetting and barring scheme and explains the impact on CRB check and a proposed revised time scale. As updated last week- you DO NOT need to register new employees with the scheme as previously directed. However, you DO still have a duty to inform ISA if you have any concerns about an individual and you DO still have a duty to ensure that new employees are not included on the barred list and you need to carry out the CRB checks prior to employment.