Welcome to this week's primary care bulletin

Key points this week include:

• Supporting patients with asthma
• July SMS fragment data and update on patient messaging
• 9 September 2024 is the go-live date for:
  changes to the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death
  and the statutory use of the Medical Examiners Service
• Update on Ealing Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) 
• Guidance on community diagnostic centres
• Are your medicines working for you? Translations for SMRs
• Monthly Babies, Children and Young People (BCYP) bulletin - an update of BCYP related news and issues
• M365 weekly drop-in session invitations – phase 2 shared data via Teams project 

Webinars and training, including:

• Vaccine confidence training for HCPs
• ICHP Masterclass
• Polypharmacy action learning set foundation course
• Final dates released for polypharmacy action learning set workshops
• Transgender healthcare training sessions

If you have any submissions for this bulletin please email them to the communications inbox - nhsnwl.communications.nwl@nhs.net

Deadline for content is 3pm Monday

To view any previous editions click here

Supporting patients with asthma

Improving asthma care and control for children and young people is a priority across NW London ICS. This years #AskAboutAsthma campaign is focusing on helping children and young people with asthma to live their best lives. 

Asthma should not limit children and young people’s lives in any way and good asthma control means having no symptoms.

Children and young people with asthma should be supported to manage their condition in all areas of their lives; at home, school/college, and in the community.

The following 4 asks can help children and young people to live their best lives. These are:

1. Get an asthma action plan in place

2. Understand how to use inhalers correctly

3. Schedule an asthma review – every year and after every attack

4. Consider air quality and its impact on lung health

GPs can support the campaign and proactively help patients by:

Developing your knowledge by attending events, including the primary care webinar 1 - 2pm on Tuesday 10 September 2024. Register for the primary care webinar and other events.

Talking to young patients and their parents about asthma and how they can manage it.

Sharing messaging about asthma triggers

Please display this poster in your waiting area.

Find out more things GPs and practice managers to support here. You can also find all of the campaign resources, including toolkit here.

July SMS fragment data and update on patient messaging

We are writing to share the July SMS fragment data and update on patient messaging within NW London.

Here's a recap and some important points to note: 

Please find attached the SMS fragment allocation for April, May, June and July 24/25. This data shows the usage of both Accurx and all messages sent via your clinical system, which includes online consultations suppliers. As mentioned this dashboard will be sent out to NW London GP practices each month so that you’re aware of the remaining allowance. 

National change in pricing per fragment:

As mentioned last month, from April 2024 all messages sent via the clinical system and online consultation providers have been billed at £0.022 per fragment (160 characters), this is a slight increase from £0.0185. This increase will also be applied to Accurx messages from the 31st August 2024. Messages sent from Accurx will be £0.0225. This increase in price is taking place nationally and is not within the control of the ICB to change.  This will not change your GP practice allocation but it may mean that the practices reach their allocation at a slightly quicker rate. We have shown a prediction of GP practice usage on the data dashboard provided.

SMS Usage Dashboards: Practices will receive a monthly dashboard after the 26th of each month containing SMS data from various sources including online consultation suppliers, clinical systems and Accurx for the previous month (e.g. 26th August 2024 will show all of April, May, June and July’s 2024 data). The graph indicates your current monthly and year to date spend, a comparison to last year’s activity, your allocated budget and forecasted spend against the current allocation. Colum N will show you the percentage of SMS messages sent against your annual allocation, this is colour coded to show how close the GP practice is to reaching your allocation. Please note that if your GP practice is Purple that you have exceeded your allocation.

SMS Webinars for GP practices:

To support GP practices with the SMS allocation, discuss the current cap and share ‘tips and tricks’ the Primary Care Digital Transformation and Delivery Team will be hosting a series of monthly webinars. We will be sending out separate comms and links for GP practices to join the webinars.
  
Overall Budget Breakdown: The total ICB budget for text messaging covers various components, including 

AccurX SMS Fragments

Clinical system messages (TPP and EMIS) 

PATCHs generated SMS 

eConsult generated SMS (in Ealing only) 

Accurx Plus licenses, AccuBook functionality

Best Practice Guidance: We encourage practices to review their patient messaging strategies encompassing emails, SMS, and NHS App notifications. Additionally, consider digital literacy and health inequalities when determining the appropriateness of SMS. NW London is developing a comprehensive guide on best practice to ensure SMS is used appropriately with confidentiality and safety in mind. 

We also encourage you to review your NHS uptake: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/nhs-app/nhs-app-dashboard [Register to have access]. You can also find the proportion of patients who are receiving notifications via the NHS App on the AccuRx "Reporting" section via "My organisation"
 
For any queries, please contact us at nhsnwl.digitalfirst@nhs.net. 

Thank you for your continued dedication to safe, efficient, and effective patient messaging.

9 September 2024 is the go-live date for
changes to the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death
and the statutory use of the Medical Examiners Service

All information on the changes can be found in this update.

All GP practices/GPs will need to refer all non-coronial deaths to the Medical Examiner (ME) Service from 9 September 2024.

This is a national statutory date for this rollout and delays will occur for the next of kin registering a death if the new process is not followed from 9 September 2024.

Find out more here.

Update on Ealing Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) 

The Ealing Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) is now fully open and accepting referrals for routine outpatients from all GPs across north west London. 

The Ealing CDC is the largest of the three new north west London CDCs and provides the same range of diagnostic tests as the recently opened Wembley and Willesden Centres combined.

The centre is based at the Ealing Hospital site. It is operated by London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust (LNWH) but run separately from the main hospital. Although the CDC is a standalone facility, all staff are employed by the acute Trust (LNWH).
 
The Ealing CDC primarily serves communities in Hanwell, Southall and Greenford, as well as supporting Brent and Harrow, whilst providing the ICS with additional capacity. All CDCs operate on this principle.

GPs who would like more information about referring to the Ealing Community Diagnostic Centre, should contact the trust’s Primary Care Liaison Officer at: lnwh-tr.primarycarequeries@nhs.net

Are your medicines working for you? Translations for SMRs

ICHP are looking to roll out the translated Polypharmacy – Are Your Medicines Working For You? across the wider NWL footprint. The patient facing checklist aims to help patients and health professionals have conversations about medicines. Are Your Medicines Working For You? focuses on empowering patients to have discussions and structured medication review with their GP, Practice Pharmacist, or other health professional.

For further information and/or to get involved with the ICHP Polypharmacy Programme please contact  

catherine.caldwell@imperialcollegehealthpartners.com

M365 weekly drop-in session invitations – phase 2 shared data via Teams project 

Dear Practice Managers & GP Leads,

N.B the following does not apply to those who have already had their Engagement meetings and/or Shared data migrated.

What?

As many of you are aware, our M365 Teams Shared Data Project is well underway; currently in Pilot & Early Adopter Phase.

To assist and support the project transition, we have developed a bespoke session (Drop-in) whereby we openly invite you all to attend when you are able.

This session is 'open door' style, so please feel free to 'drop in' and cascade/share with other staff members.

Why?

The main objective of the sessions is to provide you with a non-technical overview into the M365 Journey: 



It aims to provide information that helps attendees understand what we are embarking upon, and help prepare and plan for key meetings to make the process as seamless as possible.

How?

How to I join the Drop-In Sessions? Click on the link below which will take you to the session.

When?

Every Thursday -  starting 5 September 2024

times: 1 - 2pm

Click here to access the- shared data migration  drop-In session.
 
Thank you for your time reading this, and hope to see you soon.

Vaccine confidence training for HCPs

These sessions are aimed at key NHS teams who are delivering vaccines and having conversations with parents of school age children about childhood vaccinations and catching up on vaccinations and pregnant people about pregnancy vaccines. The training offers insight and a less formal approach to starting and navigating conversations about vaccines to allow informed choice for parents and patients.

These sessions are free, with three individual sessions bespoke for key HCP teams. HCPs need to register with their NHS or Gov emails to access the webinars. The times of each webinar and the registration links are below.

GPs and Primary care
6pm, 10 September 2024
Link to book your session

Midwives and health visitors
12pm, 12 September 2024
Link to book your session

SAIS teams
4pm, 11 September 2024
Link to book your session

Please can you share the information with NHS teams.

ICHP Masterclass 

ICHP Masterclass - Clinical and Ethical Approaches to Deprescribing and Mental Health Polypharmacy in Primary Care on Wednesday 18  September 2024 with Dr Waseem Jerjes, GP Partner, Hammersmith and Fulham Partnership. 
  
Dr Waseem Jerjes and Imperial College Health Partners would like to invite you to attend our upcoming Clinical and Ethical Approaches to Deprescribing and Mental Health Polypharmacy in Primary Care webinar on Wednesday 18 September 2024 from 12pm to 2pm. In this session we will focus on understanding and managing polypharmacy in primary care, with an emphasis on deprescribing and mental health polypharmacy. This masterclass aims to equip healthcare professionals with practical strategies to optimise medication regimens, improve patient outcomes, and address the complexities associated with polypharmacy. Please bring along any questions for discussion.    
 
Please click here to register for the session.  

Feel free to circulate this invite to other colleagues who may be interested. 
 
For further information and/or to get involved with the ICHP Polypharmacy Programme please contact  
catherine.caldwell@imperialcollegehealthpartners.com

Final dates released for polypharmacy action learning set workshops

Cohort nineteen – 11 and 25 September, 9 October 2024 

Cohort twenty – 16 October, 6 and 20 November 2024

Cohort twenty-one - 13 and 27 November and 11 December 2024

Cohort twenty-two - 22 January, 5 and 26 February June 2025

The National Polypharmacy Programme exclusively invites our NWL prescribers to join the Action Learning Set (ALS). The programme aims to build GP and prescribing health care professionals’ confidence in, and understanding of, the complex issue surrounding and stopping inappropriate medicines safely. Delegates need to attend all three sessions. The ALS with also help PCNs deliver the medicines optimisation elements of the new Directed Enhanced Services contract and contributes to the QoF.

To learn more about the Polypharmacy ALS please click here, to register for either: 

Cohort 19 please click here

Cohort 20 please click here

Cohort 21 please click here

Cohort 22 please click here

Feel free to circulate this invite to other colleagues who may be interested. 

For further information and/or to get involved with the ICHP Polypharmacy Programme please contact  

catherine.caldwell@imperialcollegehealthpartners.com

Transgender healthcare training sessions

GP surgeries are the first point of call for many transgender and non-binary patients and we therefore are responsible for day to day care including referrals, screening, monitoring and potential treatment. This is as well as the other health care issues they may present to us with. With the long waits for gender identity clinics and patients accessing treatment both privately and abroad there is an ever-increasing pressure faced by GPs and GP surgeries. Due to the lack of training, the complexities of these patients and limited access for advice from specialist services GPs can find it difficult to manage these patients appropriately. This can be reflected in Transgender patients experiences and satisfaction rates with the 2021 LGBT Patient Experience study finding that only 50% of trans patients felt their GP met their needs. These patients have higher rates of physical and mental health problems which can add to their complexity and emphasises the importance of improving the care given to them. With recent developments such as the Cass review and updated guidance from GMC, RCGP and CQC it is an evolving area that we need to be familiar with.

This training will be to help improve primary care staffs knowledge and understanding of gender dysphoria, transgender and non-binary healthcare. There are specific sessions for Clinical and Non clinical staff providing more tailored information as well as a safe space to discuss and ask questions. The sessions are split into two 90 minute sessions to ensure that all of the relevant content is discussed including an overview of current gender identity services, a patients lived experience, treatment and screening as well as much more.

Non-clinical staff 

16  September 2024, 12 - 1.30pm - Session 1 
23  September 2024, 12 - 13.30pm - Session 2 
 
Clinical staff 

18 September 2024, 12 - 1.30pm - Session 1
25 September 2024, 12 - 1.30pm - Session 2 

To book your place on the training session, please click on the relevant link below:

Transgender Healthcare for Clinical Staff

Transgender Healthcare for Non Clinical Staff

Any queries regarding the course, please contact Dr Joanna Lovett - joanna.lovett1@nhs.net and if you have any queries regarding the learning hub, please contact the IT service desk - nhsnwl.servicedesk@nhs.net.