Primary care bulletin

Pharmacy opening hours - late May bank holiday

Bank Holidays can affect the opening hours of local pharmacies.

Find full details of the opening arrangements for pharmacies in north west London, including details of those who have been asked to open over the late May bank holiday weekend (24 - 26 May 2025).

Increase in measles cases across London

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has written to primary care practitioners about an increase in cases of measles. The key points are:

measles cases are increasing across London. All patients with suspected measles (rash and fever) should be isolated immediately on arrival to protect other patients. Please notify all suspected measles cases promptly to UKHSA by telephone to facilitate timely access to post-exposure immunoglobulin for contacts in risk groups
UKHSA will prioritise health protection actions for contacts of measles cases who are immunosuppressed, pregnant or infants aged under 1 year. Please check if there have been any contacts in these three groups during the case’s infectious period.
please continue to vaccinate all children with MMR as per the routine immunisation schedule and to offer MMR opportunistically to all eligible individuals without two recorded doses of MMR. There is no upper age limit to offering MMR vaccine
all healthcare workers (and staff who have direct contact with patients) should have satisfactory evidence of protection against measles.

Find the relevant guidance and action points in the letter.

Local Medical Committee elections – nominate yourself

You have an opportunity to stand for your area’s Local Medical Committee (LMC), learning new skills and representing local GPs.

The nomination deadline is 5pm on 3 June 2025.

Learn more about the role and what you can get out of it.

Message for North West London Learning Hub Users

We would like to extend our sincere apologies for the recent notifications that users have received via the North West London Learning Hub. These notifications pertain to the Safeguarding Children Level 3 course for all clinical staff, which has recently been added to their learning.

A notice had been posted on the North West London Learning Hub to inform users of the safeguarding course changes. The course was updated on Monday 19 May 2025 which has triggered these notifications.

Notifications are sent when you or your staff members are either enrolled in a course or when courses are due for renewal.

We have contacted the Learning Hub support team to investigate why so many emails have been sent to users as this should not have happened. Rest assured, we are addressing this issue and hope to stop the notifications from being emailed to users.

If you have received notifications for staff members that are no longer with your organisation, it is likely because their accounts have not been removed from your organisation on the North West London Learning Hub. Please inform us via the IT Service Desk of any staff members who need to be removed, and we will be happy to assist with this.

Once again, we apologise for the multiple notifications.

Patient Safety Incident Response Framework pilot

NHS North West London have been accepted on a pilot scheme looking at how the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) can be implemented into primary care. It is an opportunity to shape patient safety incident management within primary care and for any practice interested in to work alongside the ICB in this pilot.

Please contact Jane Hall via the Primary Care Quality team if you are interested.

Heightened cyber threat – stay vigilant

In light of recent high-profile cyber-attacks on major UK retailers including Marks & Spencer and Co-op, and a national supermarket supplier, we’re issuing this advisory to reinforce key cyber security.

Find out about what you need to do.

Addressing concerns raised by NHS e-Referral Service users

We are aware that some NHS e-Referral Service (e-RS) users have raised concerns following the recent changes to the referring user screens.

We have consolidated most of the concerns we've received throughout this week and have them detailed on the e-RS website, including next steps and recommended tips to navigate the new screens.

This information and website link has also been published to all referring users via an e-RS system notification.

This page will be updated with further information in due course, and we will inform you as we receive further information.

If you have any problems, please contact The Clinical Systems Team via the IT Service Desk via email, or by phone on 020 3350 4050.

Delivery of mpox and gonorrhoea vaccination programmes

The government has accepted the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advice that the NHS should implement:

a routine mpox pre-exposure vaccination programme building on the existing offer
a routine opportunistic gonorrhoea vaccination programme.

Find out about eligibility, the start date and further details in NHS England's letter.

Protocol for Delivering Neonatal BCG Vaccine in London to
Infants Aged 0-12 Months

The latest protocol contains full information.

SNOMED procedure code for fourth dose of the DTaP/IPV/Hib/HepB (hexavalent) vaccine

A SNOMED procedure code has now been released for the new fourth dose of DTaP/IPV/Hib/HepB (hexavalent) vaccine, which is being introduced as part of planned programme changes to the childhood schedule:

2427211000000109 | Fourth diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis, inactivated polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b and hepatitis B vaccination (procedure).

For more details on the changes and eligibility, please refer to Changes to the routine childhood vaccination schedule from 1 July 2025 and 1 January 2026 letter.

A webinar is taking place on Wednesday 21 May 2025, 12.30 - 1.30pm, to explain the changes and what they mean for your practice and we would strongly urge you to attend. Join the webinar at the start of the session.

Please email the London Immunisations Team directly with any queries.

Spring 2025 COVID-19 vaccination programme

The Spring 2025 COVID-19 vaccination programme is currently underway and will run until Tuesday 17 June 2025. The seasonal COVID-19 vaccination is available for those within the eligible cohorts described in the full note.

The Cervical Screening Standard Operating Procedure for GP practices

There is a new dedicated webpage on the professionals section of the ICB website on cervical screening.

The page contains the new Cervical Screening Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to support GP practices with cervical screening adherence in north west London, with-in the document you will find:

staff competency, training requirements and providers - practices must ensure that staff members providing cervical screening are competent and trained to the appropriate standards. This includes initial training and training every three years
updates to cervical screening database - practices and sample takers are responsible for registering with the London Cervical Sample Takers Database and ensuring their unique sample takers code is used accurately with every sample requested
updates to request samples via TQUEST - NHS England recommends requesting cervical screening samples electronically via the practice clinical system to ensure an auditable trace and reduce transcription errors
how to manage cervical screening incidents - screening safety incidents must be reported following north west London Primary Care Quality Framework. Incidents are defined as unintended or unexpected incidents that could lead to harm to participants or staff during procedure, sample handling and results management.

Delayed inpatient discharge summaries (Imperial only)

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust have identified a problem sending of some inpatient discharge summary documents over the past three month.

Between 11 February and 15 May 2025, inpatient discharge summaries from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust were not sent to GPs or posted on the Care Information Exchange (CIE) and the London Care Record. This was about 10% of the total discharge summaries created in that period. The error was caused by incorrect processing of these documents.

It is common practice for our staff to give patients printed copies of discharge summaries before they leave our hospitals. Therefore, most patients will have received their summary in this way even if it was not sent electronically.

Read about how Imperial are fixing the problem and who you can contact with any questions.

New services in Harrow

Harrow Health are now an accredited provider for Gynaecology (including menopause), Gastroenterology and ENT with all GPs in north west London.

We are providing services locally at both Northwood Metro House, 203 Pinner Road, HA6 1BX and at Pinner the Pinn Medical Centre, 37 Love Lane, HA5 3EE. We will be expanding our clinical locations to Brent, Ealing, Hounslow, central and west London in the coming weeks/months.

Wait times are currently very low as the services are relatively new with just 1 - 2 weeks wait from referral.

Find out more about the service.

Community MAR chart transcription – update and next steps

We are writing to highlight the recent communication from the LMC supporting GPs to no longer transcribe community MAR charts.

In north west London, we currently use community charts for administration of medications by our Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust and West London NHS Trust community colleagues. By the end of June 2025, we aim to have a clearly defined and agreed process for each across the North London ICS.

To support this work, we are convening a Task and Finish Group with key stakeholders from:

acute and community specialist palliative care
digital/IT
community nursing providers
acute and community specialist palliative care.

Dr Jan Maniera and Dr Lyndsey Williams will be leading this process. The group has agreed in principle that we will transition to a new process for each MAR. However, for the time being, existing processes will remain in place. This is essential to ensure patient and clinical safety across both practices and community services while the transition is planned and implemented carefully.

Please continue to use the existing Pan-London MAR chart for palliative care, and the current north west London community administration charts for all other medications until further guidance is issued.

We are working to implement changes aligned with the LMC guidance and will keep you updated on progress.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please don’t hesitate please email Lyndsey Williams.

Unavailability of Rheumatoid factor testing (Hounslow)

Please note that Berkshire and Surrey Pathology Services is unable to offer Rheumatoid factor testing at the moment due to supplier issues. This impacts residents in Hounslow.

Their supplier Abbott has notified them of supply issues with rheumatoid factor (RF) reagents expected to resolve in the early Autumn 2025. In view of this, it is not possible to provide rheumatoid factor testing routinely until further notice. They will offer anti-CCP antibody testing as an alternative to rheumatoid factor.

If rheumatoid factor is still clinically required, please email the laboratory within seven days of the request in order for referral options to be considered.

Education and training