Bulletin 04.01.2011
Seasonal Flu Vaccine – various important updates
The BMA is encouraging GPs to continue to vaccinate all patients at risk of developing complications of seasonal flu. Message from Dr Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the GPC: “Although this is a very busy time of year for GPs and patients, I urge GPs to vaccinate their at-risk patients who have not yet received the flu vaccination and would encourage all patients who are in an at-risk group to have the flu jab as quickly as possible as this will reduce the chances of them getting seriously ill with flu.”
The GPC has written to the DoH to raise concerns about the seasonal flu vaccination campaign and the low uptake of the flu vaccination amongst at-risk patients. The GPC is urging the DoH to step up the public awareness campaign for the vaccination to encourage eligible patients to visit their GP surgeries to be immunised as soon as possible and explain the risks of leaving themselves vulnerable to the virus. Patients concerned about the vaccination containing the H1N1 flu strain also need to be assured of the safety of the vaccine. Professor Salisbury wrote this letter to Strategic Health Authority Immunisation Leads with data on vaccination uptake, encouraging SHAs to raise public awareness through the local media and work with practices to urge patients to get vaccinated.
Please note: all pregnant women who request the trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine should be offered it, irrespective of whether they have already received the monovalent H1N1v vaccine. This letter from Professor Salisbury clarifies the advice for the seasonal flu vaccination for pregnant women. This letter was also sent to the RCM and RCOG with regard to pregnant women and flu.
Government Response to White Paper Consultation
The government has published its response to the consultation on the NHS White Paper, titled ‘Liberating the NHS: Legislative Framework and Next Steps’. The full response can be read here. Although the government is going to continue with a majority of the proposals made in the White Paper, there have been a number of changes including the following:
– Maternity services will in the future be commissioned by consortia, rather than the NHS Commissioning Board
– Consortia will be required to have a written constitution
– Strengthened role for health and wellbeing boards
– Scrutiny functions will not be removed from local authorities
NHS Operating Framework 2011/12
The government has published the NHS Operating Framework 2011/12. This stated that PCTs would merge into cluster by June 2011 in response to the drive to reduce management costs. Clusters are to support the development of consortia by offering them a £2 per head development fund. This should be in addition to existing PBC DES funding.
GPC Chairman White Paper Update Letter
This letter was sent a couple of weeks ago from Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the GPC, providing you with an update on White Paper issues. It is included in this bulletin for your ease of reference.
Annual Certificate of Pensionable Earning
GPs and their accountants are reminded that, in accordance with the NHS Pension Scheme Regulations, they must provide their PCO with a completed certificate no later than one month from the date the HMRC tax return is due. The accumulated data are used to help confirm NHS information on GP earnings and it is important that this is as current as possible.
GP2GP InPS Vision Blank Attachment Problems
The GP2GP project has brought to GPC attention that there is a problem affecting practices engaged in GP2GP transfer using InPractice (InPS) System Vision 3. These practices appear to be sending blank attachments in the GP2GP transferred record. The issue has been identified by InPS as one relating to the configuration with DocMan, which is not being set up on the practice eBXML machine and the practice NACS code not being set up in the DocMan application. Further guidance on this can be found on the InPS website. InPractice is contacting all practices to assess if their system is configured correctly and correcting those systems where it is not. If a practice has any concerns they would like to raise with the GP2GP project regarding this matter please e-mail these to GP2GP@nhs.net. The GP2GP project is closely monitoring the current progress of this work, but would ask practices to:
1. Check if their system is configured correctly as per the guidance issued by InPractice in the link above;
2. Contact the supplier help desk for assistance if required;
3. If practices using other GP systems are receiving GP2GP transfers from InPractice Vision 3 practices, they are advised to check for any blank attachments. In the event that any blank attachments are found, they should await the attachments which should follow in the Lloyd George paper envelope. If information is required urgently the sending practice should be contacted directly.
SCAM ALERT, Physicians Register
There appears to be a new scam hitting local practices in the form of letter headed ‘The Physicians Register’. It’s subject is headed ‘Data Control/Confirmation of Validity’ and it states that ‘basic data are published free of charge’. However, tucked away on the validation form in the ‘order section’ is, amongst other statements, a cost implication in Euros and that favourite line that unless cancelled the order will automatically be prolonged for a further year. PLEASE DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING as we are sure this is a scam – I am trying to seek confirmation that this is the case.
APHO General Practice Profiles
The Association of Public Health Observatories will shortly be starting user testing of APHO General Practice Profiles. The profiles may prove helpful to consortia, particularly in allowing them to identify specific demographic issues faced by individual practices and to identify practices of similar profile, be it in the immediate locality or other areas of the country, to enable best practice learning and sharing. The profiles contain 158 practice-level indicators covering demography, deprivation, patient satisfaction, the Quality and Outcomes Framework, and selected hospital activity indicators, using the latest data made available in October 2010. Users can view the profile for an individual practice, or they can define a cluster of practices and view the profile for that cluster or compare an individual practice with the whole cluster.
Practice-level profiles have been produced by some Public Health Observatories for a while but this is the first time that APHO has produced them for the whole of England. GPs and practice managers that have used the existing profiles have found them useful in assessing the health needs of their populations and in comparing their own practices with national benchmarks. As GPs focus more on the commissioning of services for their populations, the profiles are likely to be of increasing use, especially as they now offer the ability to define clusters. The profiles were demonstrated at the NHS Alliance Conference on 18/19 November and are now available here.
APHO is working on a formal public launch in early 2011. In the meantime, although they are keen to make as many GPs aware of the profiles as possible, they are not actively seeking media coverage or promoting the profiles to members of the public, so please do not promote the profiles outside the GP community. APHO is keen to collate feedback from users and to gather examples of how practices and consortia are using the profiles. For this purpose they have set up a short online survey, accessible from the profiles web page; supporting documents such as a User Guide, Frequently Asked Questions and a Metadata document are also linked from the same page, at http://www.apho.org.uk/pracprof.