Tamiflu in nursing and care homes
In January the GPC sought legal advice on Public Health England’s (PHE) instructions to prescribe Tamiflu for the prophylaxis of influenza in nursing and care homes where there have been confirmed cases of influenza.
This advice was highlighted in a letter to PHE:
GMS regulations are clear that this service is not included under essential services that practices are required to provide for their registered patients. "Essential Services" are defined in the GMS regulations with reference to regulations 15(3) (5) (6) and (8). Additional work must be commissioned and funded separately as an *Enhanced Service". Examples of these are the influenza vaccination programme and catch up MMR vaccination campaign.
Although PHE disagreed with this view, we would like to re-iterate the GPC’s advice to practices that this work is not covered by their contracts and that if requested, practices should advise PHE (or whoever else requests this) that unless this service is properly commissioned, they will not be providing it in the event of a flu outbreak. The Chief Medical Officer has been informed that practices have been advised of this. We would also advise LMCs to contact their CCGs to alert them to this gap in provision and invite them to commission a service.
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