DDLMC WEEKLY UPDATE 31/08/22
PRACTICE WELLBEING & OPTION FOR REDUCED HOURS 9th SEPTEMBER 2022
The LMC and GPTF teams wish to recognise the pressures of colleagues working within general practice and promote the positive mental wellbeing for all our staff and colleagues.
For some colleagues, workload pressures and demands become too much which leads to episodes or continuation of poor mental health.
In light of the recent death of Dr Gail Milligan, the BMA is encouraging all GP practices in England on Friday 9th September, to spend some time focusing on their own wellbeing and identifying the best ways of supporting each other’s mental health. The BMA has designed suggested discussion points for the practice during this protected time as well as a suggested answering phone message for practices and PPG template letter.
As well as the national offers of support you can find a wealth of information through GP Task Force Derbyshire – Transforming General Practice to strengthen and thrive.
HMRC Scam Letter
One of our practices has received a letter and it is a very convincing SCAM demand letter being sent to businesses by fraudsters. The paper and print is almost an exact copy of what HMRC send out. The practice has very kindly shared a copy of the letter so that other Derbyshire practices are aware of this scam.
If you receive one of these letters please ensure you do not respond via the contact information given in this letter.
PCN Network Latest Guidance from the BMA
It is important to remember that only legal entities can register with CQC. If a provider is a collaborative, such as a PCN, and is not a legal entity, then it cannot carry out regulated activities and therefore it cannot be registered with CQC. In a situation where a PCN is not a legal entity, and the constituent members are already registered with CQC for the delivery of regulated activities they provide as part of the network (including extended access), they will not need to register separately from the constituent practices. However, it is advised that providers amend their statement of purpose to accurately reflect the additional roles they will assume as a participant member of a PCN.
'In a situation where a new or currently unregistered provider organisation is formed as a legal entity and the organisation will have ongoing direction and control of the delivery of regulated activities, it would be required to register with CQC. If a PCN becomes a legal entity but does not directly control and deliver regulated activities - for example by supplying staff to assist constituent practices to deliver their regulated activities - there is no need to register with CQC. Please note that new applications for registration can take up to 10 weeks to process. The exact timeframe will depend upon the complexity of the application and the availability of key information requested by the registration inspector'.
Further Information from Judy Derricott DDICB
We have been waiting for information with regards to the requirements for PCN's who have become legal entities to register with CQC. The guidance has not been published to date.
We would like all PCNs who are delivering regulated activity as the legal entity to commence registration with CQC as a matter of urgency.
https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/registration/register-new-provider
If you would like to discuss further please contact Judy Derricott judy.derricott@nhs.net
CQC Monthly Drop-in Session
Our friends at DKJ consulting run monthly CQC drop in sessions, they have recently created a closed Facebook Group called ‘CQC Chat for General Practice’ please feel free to join the group for all things CQC.
Practice Boundaries
A new GP finder will be launched on 15 September to improve people’s experience when registering with a GP practice. A new catchment area filter will help patients find GP practices which they are eligible to register with. The filter will use the latest catchment area information from the electronic Declaration (eDEC). We would encourage practices to ensure that their boundaries are correct ahead of the launch date by logging in here.
Rising Cost of Energy Crisis
Thank you to practices that have shared their energy costs with us so far, the energy crisis and the risk to General Practice is high on our agenda, we continue to champion this risk to practice in all appropriate forums. If you would like to share examples of your historic and predicted energy costs with us please do so to ddlmc.office@nhs.net We are using this information anonymously to illustrate the enormous threat this poses to practices and the potential impact on services over this winter and beyond. We continue to do this both locally and nationally on your behalf.
Immunisation Clinical Advice Service
Practices can contact the Screening & Immunisation team for support with:
- Routine Immunisation advice
- Incomplete or uncertain vaccination status
- Cold Chain Breaches
- Vaccine incidents
- PGD support
COVID-19 Testing in Periods of Low Prevalence
Following advice from UKHSA, the government has announced plans for COVID-19 testing in periods of low prevalence. Our letter sets out our approach to delivering UKHSA’s advice in relation to staff and patient testing. Routine asymptomatic testing in a number of settings will pause from 31 August, and this means the majority of asymptomatic staff and patient testing will pause. The full list of scenarios where testing in the NHS should continue after this date is listed in our letter.
Please review your COVID-19 testing protocols in light of this new guidance, and implement changes as required. Symptomatic testing will continue for both patients and staff, based on the current list of COVID-19 symptoms.
Access to Deceased Patient Records – Updated Policy August 2022
It was brought to our attention that the links in the previous policy and weekly bulletin article did not work. PCIG have updated the links and they are now working. The policy is attached here 
Access to Deceased patient records policy 2022_809439154.docx and as a attachment.
As the last registered GP Practice, the practice will be responsible for managing applications for access to deceased patients’ records made under the Access to Health Records Act 1990 (AHRA). See below
As the patient’s last registered GP, the practice will be required to own the AHRA requests for deceased patients and must store the electronic patient record for the required 10 year retention period. Deceased patient records no longer need to be printed and sent to PCSE. However, PCSE will still continue to collect any legacy paper Lloyd George records.
BMA guidance can be found here: https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/confidentiality-and-health-records/retention-of-health-records
For further guidance on how to keep records, including how long to keep different types of records, please see the NHS Records Management Code of Practice 2021.