Primary care bulletin - 19 March 2025

COVID-19 seasonal vaccination programme – spring 2025

Those eligible for a COVID-19 vaccinations in the spring 2025 campaign are:

Adults aged 75 years and over
Residents in a care home for older adults
Individuals aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed, as defined in COVID-19: the green book, chapter 14a; Tables 3 and 4 (Greenbook chapter 14a).

Note: those in a clinical risk group are not eligible.

The below information is to help GPs identify immunosuppressed patients who are 6 months and over, and invite them for their booster vaccinations.

Identifying, inviting (or signposting) and vaccination of persons aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed

The government has accepted JCVI advice that NHS should plan for a season COVID-19 vaccination programme in Spring 2025. This means that a COVID-19 booster dose will be made available to individuals aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed, as defined in COVID-19: the green book, chapter 14a; tables 3 and 4 (Greenbook chapter 14a).

The national call/recall service will invite and remind eligible people (including those who are immunosuppressed) to get their COVID-19 vaccination this spring.

The NHS North West London COVID-19 website will be updated around 25 March 2025 with the listings of confirmed vaccination centres and pharmacy sites within each borough, where people can book (from Tuesday 25 March 2025) or walk-in for their COVID-19 booster vaccination from Tuesday 1 April 2025. Please also note that not all sites offer vaccination to children, so please contact the site in advance if child vaccination is required.

Any patient querying where they can get a booster vaccination can be directed to this NHS North West London webpage.

Actions required by all north west London GP practices

Locally, there are additional crucial steps that are required by all north west London GP practices to ensure that all individuals aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed are identified and contacted to receive a booster during this spring. Find out the required actions.

London Care Record - how to find it

The London Care Record is available in your practice. It provides individual patient information from our acute, mental health and community providers in addition to your own primary care records. Futher information on the data you can see.

You can access it straight away, but it can tricky to find.

EMIS

EMIS - the London Care Record is called - 'Portal Cerner New HI'

How to find it while you have a patient with you – navigate to care record then consultation screen, (patients NHS number required) and expand the left hand column and click on Portal Cerner HI – full instructions on page two of this document

EMIS user guide

SystmOne

The London Care Record is called 'Cerner HIE'.

How to find it while you have a patient with you - open a patient record (patients NHS number required), select third party patient record and check for records – third party patient records should appear and click on Cerner HIE.

SystmOne user guide.

National Social Prescribing Day – 19 March 2025

Social prescribing is a key component of universal personalised care. It is an approach that connects people to activities, groups and services in their community to meet the practical, social and emotional needs that affect their health and wellbeing.

In social prescribing, local agencies such as local charities, social care and health services refer people to a social prescribing link worker. Social prescribing link workers give people time, focusing on ‘what matters to me?’ to coproduce a simple personalised care and support plan, and support people to take control of their health and wellbeing.

An online event, 'preventing and tackling mental ill-health through green social prescribing' takes place on 26 March 2025, 12.30 - 1.30pm.

A personalisation network activity also recently took place.

Find out more about the awareness day and the online event.

Change NHS: a health service fit for the future

We know GPs are working harder than ever to get services back on track, to get waiting lists down, and consistently deliver the best care.

Change is needed and many of the solutions we need are already here, working somewhere in the NHS today. Since the launch of Change NHS which aims to have the biggest conversation on the future of the NHS, over 100,000 contributions have been made and there have been over 1.5 million visits to change.nhs.uk.

We’ve heard about the pride that patients and staff have in the NHS, but we’ve also heard the hard truths. Where too often patients can’t get a GP appointment easily, people are waiting too long to get the treatment they need, and where staff don’t have what they need to provide the high-quality care they want to give.

To help finalise the plan, we need to get views on the emerging ideas from the engagement so far.

Please visit priorities for change to have your say by Monday 14 April 2025. After this date, the activities on the Change NHS website will close to enable the final development of the Plan.

Alongside our ongoing call for the public, staff, and the wider health and care community to share their thoughts on the ambitions for the NHS and healthcare, we are making a specific ask for general practice to connect with your Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) to also engage in Change NHS.

Thank you for all your help so far – for sharing your expertise through change.nhs.uk, attending engagement events, using the workshop in a box to run engagement with your networks, and for promoting the engagement to ensure we hear from general practice staff across the NHS in England.

Whether you have a little to say or a lot, your views, experiences, and ideas will shape immediate steps and long-term changes: a new 10-Year Health Plan for the NHS.

Medicines shortage notification - Supply problems with medicines for ADHD update

There are supply disruptions affecting the following medication: Methylphenidate MR tablets - various brands and strengths (12-hour formulations) e.g. 18mg, 27mg, 36mg and 54mg.

The supply disruption is caused by a combination of manufacturing issues and increased global demand. Other ADHD products remain available but cannot meet excessive
increases in demand caused by other shortages.

Find out more information and required actions.

Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy (PERT) shortages

The briefing document contains advice for professionals.

Networked data lab recruiting a clinical lead

Are you a clinical leader passionate about using data to improve health and care systems? Imperial College Health Partners, the Health Innovation Network for north west London, are recruiting for a GP, based in the region, to shape the design of the data collection and analysis of a research project as part of the North West London London Networked Data Lab. You'll be part of a multi-organisation team exploring housing conditions, health characteristics and outcomes.

The successful candidate will be a fully qualified GP employed by a north west London GP practice and the team are particularly interested in hearing from clinicians where their care for patients whose health may be impacted by poor housing conditions. You will also have experience of using patient data to support quality improvement or system change.
This is a part-time, contracted role, with two days of between March and October 2025.

Sound like you? Apply by 30 March 2025.

DEXA Scanning update

We’re pleased to share an update on DEXA scanning at London North West University Healthcare (LNWUH).

To improve access to radiology services and enhance patient care, we have centralised the DEXA scanning service at the Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) in Ealing, located at:

📍 Ealing Community Diagnostic Centre
Uxbridge Road
Southall
Middlesex
UB1 3HW

This allows our expert team to provide high-quality, seamless care for both patients and referrers.

For patients who previously had scans at Northwick Park and need a repeat scan, we’ve ensured that our DEXA scanners are cross-calibrated. This means new results will be directly comparable to previous ones.

We’re committed to making sure all referrers are aware of the CDC’s role in radiology services, and we’re excited to now offer DEXA scanning as part of this expanding service.

Education and training

Martyn's law webinar

NHS England’s National Estates Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) Team invite you to a webinar briefing concerning the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) bill, more commonly referred to as Martyn’s Law, which is to be delivered on 8 April 2025, 3 - 4pm.

Find out more and sign up.

Primary care systems training schedule

The training schedules for EMIS and SystmONE have been published. These schedules cover March - April 2025.

Book your places on the NHS North West London Learning Hub.

London region community of practice for covid-19 and flu vaccinations session

Spring Campaign 2025 featuring Nathan Lambert NHS England London Region Assistant Director Covid-19 and influenza Vaccination Programme and Toyin Ola-Adams Senior Operations Manager providing an overview of the spring campaign, and Bhavesh Patel, of NHS North West London, and Rajan Shah Superintendent Community Pharmacist sharing their campaign processes and site readiness.

Hosted by the NHS England London COVID-19 and Influenza Vaccination Programme Team, this session is your opportunity to:

Network with fellow providers
Share ideas and best practices
Overcome vaccination challenges together
Ask the questions you need answers to.

It takes place on Thursday 27 March 2025, 12:30 - 1.45pm via Teams.

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain actionable insights, connect with colleagues, and drive improvements in vaccination delivery. Together, we can make a difference!

Reserve your place now.

Implementation of Patient Safety Incident Response Framework and the Learning From Patient Safety Events System

The publication of the Primary Care Patient Safety Strategy (September 2024), outlined national and local commitments required to improve patient safety in primary care, including guidance for reporting patient safety events in general practice, community pharmacy, optometry and dentistry.

Additionally, GP 2025/26 contracts highlights practices will be required to have regard to the patient safety strategy and register for an administrator account (unless their local risk management system is already connected) with the learn from the Learning From Patient Safety Events System (LFPSE).

The NHS North West London Primary Care Quality team are currently undertaking a number of engagement events with Borough Leads and Practices regarding the implementation of Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and LFPSE.

We are holding an initial meeting to discuss PSIRF implementation, including the LFPSE system on Thursday 10 April 2025, 1 - 2pm, please come and join us via Teams on the day.

If you require any further information or support with PSIRF or LFPSE, or any patient safety incidents/concerns, the Primary Care Quality Team.