GP Resilience - Take Control Campaign Launched
Londonwide LMCs' latest campaign 'GP RESILIENCE - TAKE CONTROL' was launched on Monday 10 November. Comprising of posters and GP Resilience Guides, the initial phase is targeted at raising awareness of the problems experienced in your Practice today.
As Londonwide LMCs' CEO Dr Michelle Drage said, "It is now time for each of us to actively TAKE CONTROL of our work and our lives. It is time to rebuild our confidence and our resilience so that we can secure a future for our practices to do the job we as professionals are trained to do, and which all the evidence shows, is what the patients 'in front of us' want."
We have moved!
Londonwide LMCs moved office on Friday 14 November 2014. Our exciting new space replaces our split site offices that we have occupied for the previous decade. Having everyone on one site means that we will be able to provide an even better service to our GPs and their practice teams and better help them to secure the future of General Practice in London.
Our new address is:
Tavistock House South
Tavistock Square
London
WC1H 9LG
Our main switchboard number remains 020 7387 2034.
Choice of GP Practice - out of area registration Enhanced Service - GPC guidance for practices
As part of the contract agreement for 2014-15, practices will be able to register patients from outside their catchment area without the requirement to provide home visits or out of hours care. This arrangement was due to start on 1 October 2014 but it has been revised to 5 January 2015.
NHS England has designed an Enhanced Service to support the new out of area registration arrangements. The purpose of this enhanced service is 'to secure access to local GP practices for patients living in the practice area, but who are registered with a practice away from home without access to home visits'.
Friends and Family Test goes live next month
From 1 December 2014, all GP practices in England are contractually obliged to carry out the Friends and Family test. The test is anonymous and practices must use the standard wording and responses of the test question. You must also include at least one follow-up question of your own choice, which allows the opportunity to provide free text.
Upcoming Essential Practice Staff Training Events
Spaces are still available on these three excellent Londonwide Learning Education and Development (LEAD) events:
Non Payment for completed courses of childhood pneumococcal vaccination
As you may be aware, many practices nationally are experiencing problems receiving payment for childhood pneumococcal vaccinations due to an ongoing software glitch. These concerns have been escalated to NHSE, HSCIC and CQRS and we hope that a fix is in the process of being found.
Are you considering participating in the new Out Of Hospital Community Based Contract service?
If you or your GP Networks/Practice Federations are considering participation in a new Out Of Hospital Community Based Service Contract, each individual GP who may be providing the service needs to check personally with their own Medical Defence Organisation to ascertain whether or not they need to take out extra indemnification.
This applies especially to any work which involves the care of particularly vulnerable but stabilised patients discharged into the community who may require above the usual core GMS/PMS/APMS care.
Maternity Pay for GP Trainees (registrars)
If you have any GP trainees that are on or going on maternity leave, then you will find the following email of interest. Written by Karly Jose of the BMA it offers clarification on this subject.
"GPC understands there may be some confusion for area teams around payment of maternity leave to GP trainees.
To clarify, each new post on a rotation that a GP Trainee undertakes does not constitute a break in service. It has been confirmed to the GPC that there has been no change in policy from NHS England's National Support Centre..."
Be clear on Cancer - Blood in Pee Campaign
The current 'Be clear on Cancer Campaign' is running until the 24 November, on radio and television and also in the press. The aim is to highlight to the general public that 'if there's blood in their pee, they should see their GP'. There are approximately 1000 avoidable deaths due to kidney and bladder cancer in England each year which could potentially be avoided if the general public is more aware of the significance of seeing blood in their urine.
Seasonal Flu Vaccines 2015/16 - offers from the LMC Buying Group
The LMC Buying Groups Federation has concluded negotiations with flu vaccine companies for the 2015/16 season and can now announce that the first preferred supplier for 2015/16 is once again Pfizer. The joint second preferred suppliers are Abbott and MASTA and the third preferred supplier is GSK.
Given the occasional occurrence of problems in the manufacture and delivery of vaccines, Buying Group Members can access the widest possible choice of reliable suppliers as well as the best profit per dose in the market.
Sessional GP BMA e-newsletter
The first BMA e-newsletter for sessional GPs was issued this month.
The newsletter focusses on the implications of the 2015/16 GP contract agreement for sessional GPs, a survey on sessional GP experiences of appraisal and revalidation and some guidance on the relationship between sessional GPs and LMCs.
30 Health Care Assistants make the grade with our new learning programme
We welcomed Health Care Assistants to BMA House on 30 October to celebrate their successful completion of our blended learning HCA General Practice Training Programme. The course is an online programme with two taught days which takes 6 months to complete.
30 HCA places on the course were funded by Health Education (NCEL) in January 2014 to enable HCAs from NCEL to undertake the programme. The course content was written by General Practice Nurses and HCAs working in practice with two taught days delivered by experienced GPN educators.
Londonwide LMCs in the news
A selection of Londonwide LMCs' media coverage over the past month.
|
