Primary Care E-bulletin (Issue 40) - 29 May 2020

In this issue:

• COVID-19 primary care communications survey
• NHS cervical screening programme restoration guidance
• Urgent IT update
• NHS test and trace
• Utilising return to practice scheme
• Do you want to become a GP educator/supervisor?
• Webinar: how to manage HRT provision without face to face consultations
• New guidance to support GP nurses during COVID-19
• Coronavirus accessible information communication toolkit
• NHSE primary care COVID-19 bulletin
• Media enquiries

For action

COVID-19 primary care communications survey

Since March 2020, the communications teams across mid and south Essex CCGs have worked together to produce regular briefings for primary care as part of an incident response to the coronavirus outbreak.

We are keen to find out what you think has worked, what you want to keep, what you want us to stop and any ideas to improve our approach to primary care communications.

We would really appreciate it if you could spend five minutes to share your thoughts to inform next steps.

The deadline for completing the survey is Monday 8 June.

Support with day-to-day issues

NHS cervical screening programme restoration guidance

Following the publication of the NHS Cervical Screening Programme Restoration Guidance in May 2020, there are some specific actions that practices need to be made aware of. The guidance focuses on the restoration of services within colposcopy clinics and testing labs, however, practices need to undertake proactive measures to ensure that the service restores in a timely manner. These actions are:

• Women who are eligible and due for cervical screening should be offered appointments
• Invitations and reminder letters will be sent from June 2020.

Priorities for primary care providers:

• Providers should follow guidance informed by national guidance for use of PPE by health and social care workers on COVID-19 (Table 2). The Infection Prevention and Control Team are running training sessions, please contact Kelly Burke to book onto the session.
• Providers to be aware that there will be incremental increase numbers of individuals being invited for screening 
• Providers should review their local records or use final non-responder lists to identify individuals whose screening may have been affected by COVID-19 (cancellation/ delay/ response to pandemic) and be proactive in contacting them about their screening 
• Providers can now only defer in accordance with programme guidance (practice invitation reason should no longer be used) 

Some older women who are due or became overdue in the last 6 months for a final screen, remain eligible and should be screened. Any concern that the lab may discard sample due to age should be mitigated by labelling the sample “test delayed due to COVID-19”.

Urgent IT update

An urgent update is being pushed out to certain PCs and laptops tomorrow that will force those users to restart. Please ensure that you restart the computer as soon as possible after you receive the prompt as you will be unable to defer this.

Please save all work and restart or else you risk losing information when the force restart happens.

NHS Test and Trace

The NHS Test and Trace service forms a central part of the Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy. This service will play a vital role in providing an early warning if COVID-19 activity is increasing locally, regionally or nationally. This information will then be used to inform the Government’s approach to stop the spread of the virus.

Please note that we are still waiting for specific guidance about what this means for NHS staff. We will keep you updated as new guidance becomes available.

More information on NHS Test and Trace is available here

Education and training

Utilising return to practice scheme

The Workforce Team are currently working with a GP who is looking for an I&R Clinical Placement, in order to return to general practice in the UK.

Utilising the return to practice scheme is an excellent way to allow practices to take on an experienced GP who will likely be fully qualified within a short period of time, after completing their I&R Clinical Placement.

If you are interested in discussing this opportunity further, please contact Tom Peppiatt, Primary Care Workforce Project Lead, on [email protected] or 07970 329898.

Do you want to become a GP educator/supervisor?

All GP School days, which enable GPs to become supervisors/educators in order to become a training practice, were cancelled due to COVID-19; however, Health Education England (HEE) are working on a virtual solution.

HEE is working on implementing virtual school days for any GPs who are interested in becoming Clinical Supervisors and Educators. To register interest in these virtual sessions, that could also help towards becoming an accredited training practice, kindly email [email protected] for more information.

Webinar: How to manage HRT provision without face-to-face consultations

When: 4 June, 7pm

In this webinar Dr Sarah Gray, Dr Hannah Short and Dr Jane Davis will discuss and take your questions in response to the COVID-19 healthcare restrictions. The use of telephone and virtual consultation was endorsed by the BMS, FSRH and RCOG in March 2020.

The Primary Care Women’s Health Forum has produced this guide for primary care practitioners in order to provide support for HRT provision during this time. This guide includes menopause management checklist tools designed for remote consultations in primary care.

For information

New guidance to support GP nurses during COVID-19

The Queen’s Nursing Institute has published a new document, Minimum Bridging Competencies for General Practice Nurses Transitioning to Community Nursing.

The Competencies will support nurses who are taking up new roles at short notice during the Covid-19 pandemic. The development of the new document has been funded by NHS England and Improvement.

Find out more information about this new guidance for general practice nurses

Coronavirus accessible information communications toolkit

Health Education England’s national Library and Knowledge Services team has made available the https://library.nhs.uk/ website which hosts a range of resources which front line staff can use to help them communicate effectively with patients, clients, and their families around Coronavirus.

The website includes easy read, sign language and Makaton formats as well as other communication guidance. All materials on the website meet the accessible information standard.

The password to access the communications toolkit is: LKSResources