Bulletin 28.07.2009
Pandemic Flu Update
We are aware that patient requests for sick notes are posing some questions/issues for practices in the area, particularly where patients have been diagnosed by someone other than the practice and have self certified for 7 days but are now approaching the practices for a note as they require additional time off work. We have raised this nationally and will update you as soon as we get an official response. As you will be aware, government is considering increasing self certification to 14 days for swine flu cases but until this decision is made there is no easy solution practices will need to continue to manage this situation as best they can. The pandemic flu Q&A has been updated and you can view the latest version here www.bma.org.uk/health_promotion_ethics
The national English pandemic flu service has been now been launched by the DH. There is a dedicated website where people can get their queries answered on-line, or via the flu line 0800 1 513 100, where trained staff will be able to assess patients over the phone. Following an assessment, they will be given an authorisation number to give to the nominated person to collect antivirals from their local antiviral collection point.
It is hoped that this will allow GPs to focus on more serious/at risk groups and all the patients they have who are ill with things other than swine flu, as the patients who are currently ringing surgeries worried about swine flu will now ring the flu line for advice instead.
In the light of the confusing press coverage over fitness to fly notes, after discussion with the airlines, we can confirm that GPs will not have to give out fitness to fly notes.
Airlines have made their staff aware of the swine flu situation and have given them broad instructions on how to spot possible symptoms. This is standard practice – they issued similar guidance during the SARs incident. If their staff have concerns, they can refer the passenger to their onsite medical service – Medlink – who will then assess, in cooperation with the patient, their fitness to fly. If they are not regarded as fit, they won’t be allowed to fly and will be asked to ring the NHS flu line or go online to the symptom checker and then follow the normal advice for people who suspect they have swine flu.
Holiday insurance cancellation certificates
The Association of British Insurers have stated that they will accept the submission of the antiviral authorisation number and the label from the Tamiflu packet as evidence of a patient having had flu.
Guidance for Assessing Children in Primary Care with Possible Swine Flu
Please find attached a joint statement from GPC, RCGP and RCPCH regarding guidance for assessing children with a possible diagnosis of swine flu here.
The management of GP contracts in England is set to change following the publication in January 2009 of the document ’Primary and Community Services: Improving GP services’ by the Department of Health (DH). This document www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics follows on from the NHS Next Stage Review, and is part of the World Class Commissioning (WCC) initiative. Where many GPs previously considered WCC to involve the commissioning of services in secondary and community care, this document seeks to manage the quality of primary care services commissioned by primary care trusts (PCTs) from all GP practices, and provides practical advice on how PCTs can do this. Throughout 2009/10, PCTs will look to begin a process of monitoring practice performance in a number of areas and managing practice contracts with these new data.
This represents a significant shift in the relationship between practices and PCTs. It is essential that practices familiarise themselves with this document. This DH guidance will become a central part of the function of PCTs; ‘Get the commissioning of GP services right and the benefits will extend to the commissioning of wider NHS services, including hospital care’ (p13).
Th e BMA have produced a ‘Focus on…’ that intends to explore: how PCTs will assess practice performance and how GPs/LMCs can influence this process; how PCTs have been advised to manage all primary care contracts; and the opportunities that this DH guidance presents for GPs. You can view the document by following this link. The guidance is also available on the BMA website. www.bma.org.uk/employmentandcontracts
This represents a significant shift in the relationship between practices and PCTs. It is essential that practices familiarise themselves with this document. This DH guidance will become a central part of the function of PCTs; ‘Get the commissioning of GP services right and the benefits will extend to the commissioning of wider NHS services, including hospital care’ (p13).
Th e BMA have produced a ‘Focus on…’ that intends to explore: how PCTs will assess practice performance and how GPs/LMCs can influence this process; how PCTs have been advised to manage all primary care contracts; and the opportunities that this DH guidance presents for GPs. You can view the document by following this link. The guidance is also available on the BMA website. www.bma.org.uk/employmentandcontracts
NE Wide Work On Improving Communications
Following the Accelerated Learning primary care event led by Chris Willis, there is a group with representation from all ‘clusters’ developing a NE wide framework which will inform and support the development of local primary care strategies. One of the key issues identified is around improving communication.
The NE group have been developing a short questionnaire that will provide you with an opportunity to influence how practices are provided with different forms of information and how the practices would like to develop a more two way form of communication. We would encourage you to look out for this questionnaire and endeavour to complete and return it .
We appreciate that questionnaires are not always popular but it was felt that this base line information would be really important to find out what works and what doesn’t so that mistakes from the past aren’t replicated.
Guidance on Sealing Electronic Patient Records
Some GP clinical systems include functionality that allows a GP to restrict access to elements of patients’ electronic health records to different levels of user within the practice. This functionality is not consistent across systems and any data that is hidden is likely to be revealed when the patient record is transferred to another GP clinical system. This can happen when a patient’s record is transferred to another practice via traditional paper record transfer or GP2GP or following a data migration to another GP clinical system in the practice.
GPs are therefore advised to inform patients, who want elements of their electronic health record to be kept confidential, that the information is not likely to remain hidden when the record is transferred to another system, either electronically or via paper transfer.
Look After Our NHS – a further letter from Hamish Meldrum
Dear colleague,
Have you signed up to the BMA’s eight key Principles for the NHS yet?
If you haven’t yet visited www.lookafterournhs.org.uk and registered your support for an NHS which is publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable, now is the time to do so. Every vote counts so please visit the website today, and register your support. But whatever your views, we’d like to hear them.
Local examples of NHS market reforms
We’d particularly like to hear how NHS market reforms are affecting you, your patients and your working lives, as well as how they’re affecting existing NHS services and public finances. Again, you can do this at www.lookafterournhs.org.uk – it’s in complete confidence and we won’t share the information further unless you’d like us to.
Pass this email on to at least 5 colleagues – or even more!
Since the campaign was launched, hundreds of doctors have been spreading the word about the campaign by email. This is making a real difference to the number of people visiting the website and pledging their support. You can too. Please forward this email to your colleagues – the more the merrier – and encourage them to visit the website and get involved.
The more people we can galvanise to cascade emails and the website link to colleagues, the more effective the campaign will be. By working together we can ensure our message is spread far and wide – and acted upon.
Thank you.
Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council, BMA
GP Trainees Subcommittee Elections
GP Trainers – Please pass this on to your GP trainees
The GP Trainees subcommittee recently invited nominations for representatives for each of their 19 regional constituencies. The nomination process has now ended. We received more than one nomination for each of the constituencies below, and will therefore be holding elections in these constituencies. The boundaries for these constituencies are organised along deanery lines.
• East Midlands
• Eastern
• Northern
• Oxford
• Scotland (West)
• West Midlands
• Yorkshire
Ballot forms will be sent out on 27th July, and the closing date for the return of ballot papers is 17th August.
GPs are therefore advised to inform patients, who want elements of their electronic health record to be kept confidential, that the information is not likely to remain hidden when the record is transferred to another system, either electronically or via paper transfer.
Have you signed up to the BMA’s eight key Principles for the NHS yet?
If you haven’t yet visited www.lookafterournhs.org.uk and registered your support for an NHS which is publicly funded, publicly provided and publicly accountable, now is the time to do so. Every vote counts so please visit the website today, and register your support. But whatever your views, we’d like to hear them.
Local examples of NHS market reforms
We’d particularly like to hear how NHS market reforms are affecting you, your patients and your working lives, as well as how they’re affecting existing NHS services and public finances. Again, you can do this at www.lookafterournhs.org.uk – it’s in complete confidence and we won’t share the information further unless you’d like us to.
Pass this email on to at least 5 colleagues – or even more!
Since the campaign was launched, hundreds of doctors have been spreading the word about the campaign by email. This is making a real difference to the number of people visiting the website and pledging their support. You can too. Please forward this email to your colleagues – the more the merrier – and encourage them to visit the website and get involved.
The more people we can galvanise to cascade emails and the website link to colleagues, the more effective the campaign will be. By working together we can ensure our message is spread far and wide – and acted upon.
Thank you.
Hamish Meldrum, Chairman of Council, BMA
GP Trainers – Please pass this on to your GP trainees
The GP Trainees subcommittee recently invited nominations for representatives for each of their 19 regional constituencies. The nomination process has now ended. We received more than one nomination for each of the constituencies below, and will therefore be holding elections in these constituencies. The boundaries for these constituencies are organised along deanery lines.
• Eastern
• Northern
• Oxford
• Scotland (West)
• West Midlands
• Yorkshire