DDLMC WEEKLY UPDATE 22/12/22
FESTIVE OPENING HOURS
Our office will close at 4:30pm on Friday 23rd December 2022 and reopen at 9am on Tuesday 3rd January 2023. Routine service will be off until the new year, however we have an on-call presence for urgent practice issues during this period and can be contacted by telephone on 01332 210008.
CHANGE TO WEEKLY BULLETIN CIRCULATION
During the Covid-19 pandemic DDLMC worked with the ICB (then CCG) to deliver a weekly update. This has been well received and helped many practices navigate the huge volume of information and changes during the pandemic.
DDLMC are a voluntary levy organisation and we believe it is time to revert back to tailoring the newsletter to supporting our levy paying practices.
The newsletter will no longer go out to all stakeholders and will be directed to levy paying practices only from the new year.
We would like to thank you for your continued support to DDLMC and we will continue to work with our partners to share information.
OPEL REPORTING FOR DERBYSHIRE GENERAL PRACTICE
Thank you to practices that have reported an OPEL position recently. This process has changed recently, and the definition of each OPEL level has been altered to be more equivalent to OPEL reports from other NHS Providers.
We recently sent out to all Derbyshire Practices an anonymised copy of the report, and we received valuable feedback that will be discussed through the Winter operational meetings that include LMC, GPPB, ICB, DHU and DCHS to try to support practices. Please continue to share any feedback with us at ddlmc.office@nhs.net or derbyshire.gppb@nhs.net .
From an LMC/GPPB perspective we know that General Practice is in a state of crisis, with excessive demand, workforce shortages and patient expectations. We are not yet seeing this reflected within the OPEL reporting. Reporting Opel 3 or 4 does not open up another avenue of work. You will be offered the support of the GPPB, LMC and ICB in completion of the Resilience & Sustainability checklist to see if we can help, but this is optional.
The other purpose of OPEL is so that your representatives, including Dr Ben Milton (DDLMC), Dr Andy Mott and Ian Potter (GPPB), have practice reported positions to show our wider system partners the real pressure in practices and hence seek support.
Please find below some thoughts around the OPEL criteria scores:
If practices are diverting patients to 111 or UTC due to reaching capacity, or telling patients who want a routine appointment to call another day, then they have insufficient resources to deliver comprehensive patient care. This is OPEL 3.
If practices have to additionally cancel a number of appointments due to staff illness, or work beyond safe capacity (Safe working in general practice (bma.org.uk)) while still diverting patients to 111 etc, then they are at OPEL 4.
This process really is helpful for us, so please do complete the report weekly as far as possible. If the information is incomplete please still submit what you can - it's most useful for us to have returns from every practice.
PRACTICE MANAGEMENT INDUCTION PROGRAMME - FEBRUARY 2023
Following on from a successful pilot in 2021 & 2022, this programme is now refreshed and open to any new and existing Practice Managers, Assistant PMs, PCN staff, Operations Managers. The programme will give a good grounding in the key areas of general practice management with a more in depth learning format led by experienced practice managers and expert speakers.
Further information attached with course content, dates and times.
CLOSING DATE – applications by Friday 13th January via the link to our GPTF Application Form .
Please email ddlmc.gptf@nhs.net with any questions.
ACCELERATE PROGRAMME PHASE V
We are pleased to inform you that we have a new date and time for an additional Introductory webinar for the Phase V Accelerate programme, as outlined in the system wide meeting on the 13th December 2022.
The introductory webinar will cover the following information.
- Content of the Programme and what support is offered.
- Time commitment required from the Practice.
- Other support e.g., Engagement Fee available to Practices.
- Opportunity to commit to the Programme.
- Experience from a previous participant (if possible).
The date of the webinar is Wednesday 4th January - 12pm
The new date has been added to the webinar registration form so please do ask your Practices to complete the registration form link below.
Accelerate Phase V Introductory Webinar Registration Form
Practices are asked to sign up by the 5th January 2022 (24 hours after the webinar).
In the interim, if you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact a member of the Access Team and please do share with your wider Primary Care systems and any other colleagues who would find this of value.
WINTER CAMPAIGNS
Winter Campaigns 2022 - Google Drive
In the NHS111 folder:
- National NHS 111 online graphics for use on social media / screens
- The 'Five things you can do to help you and your family stay well this Christmas article' and associated graphics to support its promotion (some work as a standalone as they have the key messages on)
- 'Tick repeat prescriptions off your Christmas to-do list' graphics for use on social media and screens
In the Respiratory – Winter 22 folder:
- Graphics for social media and screens to support management of different respiratory conditions
In the self-care folder:
- Patient information leaflets for cold sores, colds, dry eyes, headaches and migraines and sore throat
- Posters to promote pharmacy and self-care
- Graphics for social media to promote self-care for cold sores, colds, dry eyes, headaches and migraines and sore throat
- Self-care videos
MESSAGE FROM DDICB
The ICB have identified managing respiratory conditions as a key area to promote over the winter. The aim of the campaign is to:
- Ensure respiratory patients have the necessary tools and information to self-manage their condition over winter
- Remind respiratory patients of self-care measures they can do to manage their condition
- Reduce the likelihood of them needing to visit their GP practice/A&E/UTC visits, therefore protecting capacity in primary and secondary care
- Reduce hospital acquired infection
In order to get the message across to the appropriate audience, the ICB have created a comms toolkit for GPs (attached) which contains a wealth of resources the practices can use to spread the message. The ICB have committed to paying for 10 text messages to be sent from each GP to applicable asthma and COPD patients within Derby and Derbyshire. You can find the copy for these text messages within the comms pack as well as a schedule of these message.
MESSAGE FROM JUCD
The link below introduces the warm space scheme and gives a list of all the venues signed up as a warm space or warm hub.
INDUSTRIAL ACTION BY EMAS AND WMAS
At the time of writing, members of the ambulance service who are members of the GMB union have planned industrial action to take place on Wednesday 28th December 2022 from 06:00 hours to 05:59 hours on Thursday.
NEW GUIDELINES FOR GPS FOR TESTOSTERONE PRESCRIBING IN MENOPAUSAL WOMEN
Derbyshire Shared Care pathology and Medicines Management team have been working together over the last 3 months, to write a guideline to enable GPs wishing to consider prescribing testosterone to women as part of their menopause management, to do so. Testosterone can be used as an adjunct to traditional HRT (oestrogen plus progesterone) and specifically in those people with low libido. This doesn't stop you being able to refer to secondary care for help with menopausal symptom management but gives you the option of being able to prescribe and monitor testosterone in primary care, should you wish to do so.
These are the two guidelines which will be uploaded to the respective websites:
https://www.uhdb.nhs.uk/download.cfm?doc=docm93jijm4n865.pdf&ver=55977