Primary care bulletin - 22 October 2025

New look to webpages

The professionals section of the NHS North West London website has been redesigned.

We’ve made changes based on feedback of clinical leads. The section includes new features, including an event calendar and a clinical news section. The builds upon the re-organisation work we undertook earlier in the year, to make the pages easier to navigate.

Please note that the medicines optimisation and community pharmacy section is unaffected.

Visit the professionals section now.

Sign up for the Health Equity Summit: 25 November 2025

This year’s Summit will focus on delivering health equity through the lens of neighbourhood health. It will inspire and encourage collective action to achieve equitable health outcomes for our Core20Plus5 communities across north west London, using the neighbourhood health approach.

Register here for a ticket.

Nominate your community hero – 2025 Health Equity Awards

Do you know someone making a difference in reducing health inequalities in north west London? Nominate an individual or organisation from the voluntary sector, NHS, or local authority for the North West London Integrated Care System (ICS) 2025 Health Equity Awards.

category: recognising North West London heroes who are empowering communities
domination deadline: 12 noon, Friday 31 October 2025
winners announced: 25 November 2025 at the ICS Health Equity Summit.

Submit your nomination using the nomination form. Let’s celebrate those breaking down barriers and building a fairer, healthier north west London.

Bites and stings service at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases

Tropical Medicine is a nationally commissioned service and the bites, stings, and animal-related injury service at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases offers high-quality, specialised treatment, care, and expert advice to patients who have experienced animal or plant-related injuries.

Find out about the supported conditions and how to make a referral.

Delayed supply of BCG vaccine and temporary restriction of ordering via ImmForm

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has been informed by the sole supplier of BCG vaccine that is licenced for use in the UK, that a delivery has been delayed for administrative reasons. This may lead to delay to the infant BCG programme, occupational health BCG vaccination and other indications for BCG as outlined in the Green Book should rescheduled deliveries not occur in time.

The UKHSA briefing note contains further information.

Please email any enquiries to the incident email address.

Flu vaccination - those experiencing homelessness

A quick reminder from our GP clinical lead that all people experiencing homelessness are entitled to a flu vaccination regardless of any long-term conditions.

SMS Patient messaging - August 2025 data

From April 2025, the SMS allocation was reduced to 30p per patient, as agreed by NHS North West London under a three-year business case. This change has been previously communicated via bulletins, emails, and webinars, and shared with the LMC.

The attached August SMS data dashboard shows usage by GP practices across Accurx and clinical systems, including online consultation providers. It excludes self-funded providers and those not on the same gateway. The dashboard also includes NHS App message volumes.

NHS North West London has asked all GP practices to review and complete the MOU, which confirms that once practices exceed the 30p per patient allocation, they will be charged for additional SMS use. These charges will appear on your PCSE statement with advance notice given. The dashboard provides forecasts to help practices plan ahead, including when and by how much they may exceed the allocation.

Historical data shows SMS volumes peak in October, January, and February. We have factored this into the forecast. Last year’s spend is included for reference, informing whether practices exceeded the previous 45p allocation.

NHS App Dashboard:

The NHS App allows patients to submit Online Consultations, book appointments, order repeat prescriptions and get advice without directly contacting their GP practice. It also allows GP practices the functionality of sending messages directly to patients without having to pay for the SMS cost, once their NHS App notifications are switched on. NHS England has sent all GP practices the target that 60% of the patient population should have downloaded the NHS App. Please log into the NHS App dashboard to view the NHS App data:

NHS App dashboard - NHS England Digital

What does the ICB fund for GP Practices?

North West London ICB has committed to fund SMS costs in Primary Care, for 3 years (from April 2023 - March 2026). This funding covers:

license costs for Accurx for 3 years for all GP practices in north west London
67.5 million SMS fragment costs over the 3 years. The number of fragments that are funded reduces each year..

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 .

If you have any questions, please email the Digital Transformation and Delivery team.

Cancer GP Update

RM Partners Cancer GP update is now available.

The links to the referenced attachments are below:

Pharmacy First services

As we approach the winter season, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight the Pharmacy First promotional assets available to support your practice and patients. These resources are designed to raise awareness of the service available through community pharmacies and help manage demand across primary care.

More details are available in a document.

NHS App business cards ready and available to share to patients from your practice

Printed NHS App business cards are available for distribution.

Across October 2025, practices can request these via nhsnwl.digitalfirst@nhs.net. Email with your practice name, appointed contact person and delivery address.

Assets will be distributed weekly prioritised by first come first serve.

Information about laptops still on Windows 10

Windows 10 became end of life (eol) on 14 October 2025. Windows devices will still receive the October security patch, so we are aiming to upgrade all devices by mid-November.

A detailed note contains information about the update and what you can expect.

N365 Team Owners

It is the responsibility of a Team Owner to manage members of the team. An owner can add or remove team members, change team settings and manage administrative tasks.

As part of best practice we ask that all Practices ensure you have two team owners.

Please check the guidance and a team owners' checklist.

RSV in pregnancy – Calculating Quality Reporting Service returns and coding guidance

NHS England had been contacted by several Commissioners and GP practices regarding the RSV in pregnancy automated payment service, where practices are accessing Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) National to confirm achievement for RSV-P (September achievement) but are seeing zero returns.

As this issue is affecting practices across multiple suppliers, it is believed the most likely cause is that pregnancy is not being coded at the same time as the RSV vaccination, in line with the business rules and guidance outlined in the NHS England contractual guidance.

7.9 Practices should ensure that, for the vaccination in pregnancy programme, a pregnancy code is also present on the patient record.

The business rules will check that a pregnancy code is present on the same day that the RSV vaccination code was added to the patient record.

Please note: The business rules do not specifically look for “28-weeks pregnant” but will check for any appropriate pregnancy code listed in the PREG_COD refset.

To ensure practices qualify for payment in future automated extractions, it is essential that both the RSV vaccination and a pregnancy code are recorded on the same day in the patient record.

An up-to-date list of codes used in the relevant refsets can be found on the Primary Care Domain Reference Set Portal.

A more detailed note contains details about required actions.

Activating OpenSAFELY

A few months ago, NHS England issued a Data Provision Notice (DPN) to GP practices for the OpenSAFELY Data Analytics Service. Developed from the OpenSAFELY COVID-19 Service, this platform allows GPs and NHS England to access pseudonymised patient data for secondary uses purposes. The platform is supported by the BMA and RCGP.

We have been informed by colleagues from NHS England that NHS North West London is currently ranked last out of 42 ICBs in England for activating OpenSAFELY on their clinical systems.

Londonwide LMCs produced an article to endorse OpenSAFELY, and advise on steps for practices to take.

We are asking practices to follow the necessary steps to activate the agreement on their clinical systems. A DPN is a formal notice to provide requested data, and is a legal requirement. The data analysed will be pseudonymised, and Type 1 opt-outs will be respected.

Make your voice count

The clinical systems experience survey for general practice aims to understand how digital tools are really working - from the consulting room to the reception desk. It’s been developed with GPs to reflect real-life pressures and priorities.

Your feedback will help guide national thinking, highlight priority areas for supplier improvement, shape future investment in general practice digital systems and support ICBs to plan local improvement initiatives to support efficient and effective practice.

it takes less than 10 minutes
anonymous and easy to access
developed with GPs.

All staff working in general practice who use the clinical system are encouraged to take part.

We encourage all practices to participate in this survey, which is open until 16 November 2025

Opportunity for practices to join the north west London Population Risk Segmentation Project

NHS North West London is inviting practices to join a pilot supporting the 2025/26 CAIP Risk Stratification requirements—potentially unlocking over £20,000 per PCN. The project integrates WSIC data into EMIS and TPP systems to enable proactive, real-time care. Participating practices will receive a clinical SOP, monthly data uploads by IG-compliant staff, and access to training webinars. Expressions of interest for Phase 1a are due by 31 October 2025.

Find out more taking part in our detailed brief.

Education and training

Primary care systems training schedule

The Primary Care Systems Training team offer SystmOne and EMIS Web courses, delivered via Microsoft Teams. The training schedule for November 2025, December 2025, January 2026 and February 2026 has been published.

These courses can be booked via the North West London Learning Hub.

Fit for Three: Protecting Heart, Kidneys and Blood vessels

In this episode of For Kidneys Sake, Dr Andrew Frankel and Prof Jeremy Levy are joined by Dr Tony Willis, a GP and clinical lead in diabetes and chronic kidney disease prevention. Together, they examine the evidence supporting the role of physical activity in enhancing outcomes for individuals with cardio-renal metabolic disease.

Listen on the Buzzsprout website.

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive key messages regarding each topic.

GP appointment systems training

There will be 10-minute overview sessions with three north west London GPs:

mapping need to appointments - Dr Yasmin Razak
appointment systems - Dr Louise Cavanagh
total triage - Dr. Sarvesh Saini

There will be also a breakout group and wider group discussions.

The event takes place on Tuesday 4 November, 1 - 3pm. The online form provides more details and enables you to book.

North west London non-clinical practice staff cervical screening webinars

Non-clinical practice staff across north west ondon are invited to attend one of the upcoming cervical screening webinars. These sessions are designed to provide updates on recent developments in the NHS cervical screening programme and offer a valuable refresher for those supporting patients in primary care.

Each webinar will cover:

an overview of the NHS cervical screening programme
how to support patients in making an appointment
managing bookings and results, including NHS App notifications
addressing barriers to engagement and improving patient uptake.

Dates (attend one session only):

Thursday 7 November 2025, 12 - 1pm
Thursday 20 November 2025, 12 - 1pm
Tuesday 2 December 2025, 1 - 2pm.

Location: Microsoft Teams

Book your place here.

Lipid management - recent updates session

We would like to invite you to the upcoming cardiovascular webinar on Wednesday 26 November 2025, 1 - 2pm.

In this session, organised by Dr Mohammed Haidar, North West London ICS Clinical Lead for cardiovascular and renal disease, we will focus NHS North West London lipid guidelines ensuring alignment with current standards of care, and the associated novel therapies. You will also hear real-life experience from Dr Jai Cegla, Consultant in Metabolic Medicine at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and NHS England Clinical Advisor).

We will also provide an update on the 25/26 QoF, inclisiran reimbursement changes and medicines management and optimisation focusing on how these frameworks impact lipid management. You will have the opportunity to put your questions to north west London clinicians in a Q&A chaired by Dr Mohammed Haidar.

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

Register for the session in advance.

For further information and/or to get involved with the Imperial Health Partners cardiovascular disease series please contact Catherine Caldwell.