GP Bulletin
For Action
· Referring to the district nursing service after 31st March
Due to the closure of the NHSmail fax service on 31st March the District Nursing Service is promoting electronic referrals from 1st April.
Who will be affected by this change?
Any GP who currently refers to the district nursing service using NHSmail fax service.
What do I need to do?
Please start sending your referrals securely by email using an NHSmail generic mailbox i.e. your GP practice nhs.net account.
· Referrals to Lambeth District Nursing
· Email:
· Referrals to Southwark District Nursing
· Email:
Can I continue to send referrals by fax machine after 31st March?
Yes, if you normally use a fax machine the district nursing service will continue to accept faxed referrals until 30th June. After this date, the service will only accept referrals via secure email.
For enquiries please contact Patience Maponga at .
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· Save the Date
The next All Practice Event is due to take place on the afternoon of 30th June 2015 at the Kia Oval.
Full details will be sent in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, please hold the date in your diaries.
We look forward to seeing you there.
· Protected Learning Events 2015/16 (PLT’s) (Please see attached flyer for May PLT(1))
Please find below the dates for 2015/16 PLT’s. You will note that there are six dates in total for the coming and following favourable feedback from the one PLT session that you could use as a self-choice event, we have decided to continue this into 2015/16. Please make a note of the dates in your practice diaries.
Date / Topic / VenueThursday 21st May 2015 / CVD / John Major Room, Kia Oval
Thursday 9th July 2015 / Gut & Liver / John Major Room, Kia Oval
Thursday 17th September 2015 / Malnutrition / John Major Room, Kia Oval
Tuesday 1st December 2015 / Self-Choice / TBC
Thursday 11th February 2016 / Mental Health / TBC
Details of the 21st May PLT event are as follows, please see attached flyer for further details
Protected Learning Time Event
Atrial Fibrillation, Anticoagulation and Lipid Management
Thursday 21st May 1 – 4.30pm
John Major Room, The Kia Oval, Kennington, London SE11 5SS
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· New Clinical Network Vacancy (Children)
We have today advertised a new Clinical Network vacancy supporting our Children’s Programme Board. We are looking to cover 1 day per week, ideally shared between 2 clinicians (or one Clinician and one Practice Manager) for one year.
I would be very grateful if you could forward this to anyone on your network that you think might be interested. Please see link below to our internet site for further information.
http://www.lambethccg.nhs.uk/Practice-Portal/resources/Recruitment/clinical-network/Pages/default.aspx
For enquiries please contact Emma Stevenson, Assistant Director Children & Maternity Joint Commissioning on 07768 855409 or by email at :
For Information
· Re. Identification of people at high risk of diabetes, interpretation of HbA1c results. (Please see attached letters (2a-b))
Please share this letter with the relevant clinical staff in your practice.
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· DXS now live! (Please see attached Newsletter (3))
DXS Best Pathway is a Clinical Decision Support system that provides you with an easy way of accessing content in your workflow. It contains clinical pathways and referral forms for Lambeth (and some Southwark) services in one central location.
· FREE walks series to examine grief and loss – Myatt’s Fields park (May through to November)
https://griefwitnesser.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/walks-to-remember/
You are invited to a series of walks in the park to remember people who have died, or things that have been lost in our lives. The walks will be a collective time for walking, for silence, for talking, and for tea and cake.
Grief as a response to loss and death is part of life, but is often seen as something to be fixed or avoided, as if there was something ‘wrong’, if you are feeling sad about the end of a relationship, the loss of a job or of failing health, or if you are still grieving a parent, sibling, partner or child who died a while ago. You may feel pressure to ‘move on’ to the next thing rather than acknowledging the pain of the loss. These walks are also a space for acknowledging empathic pain of tragedy not in our immediate life; war, violence, pollution, loss of any life.
The walks are free and open to everyone, including children. However if you need some time for yourself, see if you can find someone to stay with your child(ren) in the playground for an hour. Come with an open mind, willing to listen to yourself and talk to others, or to remain silent if that’s what you need.
These walks are a simple way of beginning a conversation about grief and loss. It is not bereavement counselling and there will be support for telling your story in a way that is safe for you, and guidelines for how to listen. These walks are an investigation into how as a community we can allow grief some space.
This is an Invisible Food project in which we explore things that sustain and nurture us that aren’t ordinarily visible.
These walks have been funded with a grant of £500 by Skipton Grassroots Grants.
Dates:
· Saturday 9th May
· Sunday 14th June
· Wed 30th September
· Friday 30th October
· Friday 27th November
Time: 10.30am – 12pm (1 hour walk followed by tea and cake)
Dates and times are subject to change. Always check programme closer to the date.
Location: Myatt’s Fields Park, Camberwell/Brixton. SE5 9RA . Meet in the Quiet Garden near the Knatchbull Road entrance nearest the Library.
Cost: Free
Who for: Anyone who can walk or be wheeled around the park. Children welcome, but ask a friend to stay with them in the playground if you need some time to yourself.
What will actually happen?: We’ll meet at 10.30am , introduce ourselves, have some time to consider what it is we are grieving, pair up with someone to walk round the park and talk (or remain in silence if that’s what you both want), return back to starting point for a closing circle and tea and cake. It’s fairly relaxed.
What to bring (essential): an open mind, willingness to listen to yourself and talk to others if that feels comfortable. Willingness to remain silent if that’s what you need.
What to bring (optional): some cake and a flask of tea to share. The park café may be open on some dates.
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· London QARC Guidelines (Please see attached guidelines (4))
In response to the London QARC Guidelines on Sample Handling* outlining the necessity for correct labelling and matching of all cervical samples as per minimum standards; the following guidelines detail the individual scenarios for sample handling and expected outcomes.
These guidelines will support sample takers, general practices, laboratories and commissioners continuously improve performance and quality in the cervical screening programme, and in particular to eliminate the occurrences of screening incidents and women receiving wrong results and advice; and to maximise the use of laboratory staff time and resources. It will also support the 14 Day Turn Around Time standard, required as part of The Cancer Reform Strategy, whereby 98% of all women should receive their result within 14 days of their cervical sample being taken.
The course of action for any sample deemed inadequate could result in the necessity to recall a woman for a repeat screen; this would be regrettable and has the ability to cause distress and an inconvenience for the woman involved thus resulting in a loss of confidence in the screening programme.
To support this continuous improvement, laboratory staff will be monitoring inadequate samples and late receipt of samples.
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· Controlled Drugs and EPS - Legislation due to come into effect on 1 July is just the first step
Legislation will come into force on 1 July 2015 to allow controlled drugs listed under schedules 2 and 3 to be prescribed and dispensed using EPS.
However, it should be noted that although this means using EPS for Schedule 2 & 3 controlled drugs will be legal, it will be some time later that it becomes technically possible as all EPS enabled dispensing system suppliers have to amend their systems before a GP system (which also need amending) can prescribe to a nominated dispenser. The HSCIC will be assuring supplier systems conform technically to legislative change requirements
The update below on Schedule 2 & 3 Controlled Drugs and EPS has been published at http://systems.hscic.gov.uk/eps/news.
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· UKPIPS (United Kingdom Primary Immune-deficiency Patient Support) (please see attached flyers (5a-c))
UKPIPS is a registered charity and Patient Support Group which exists for people in the British Isles who suffer from Primary Antibody Deficiency. It is managed and run on a volunteer basis by patients with this rare disease for the benefit of others with the same condition.
We are approaching the conclusion of World Primary Immune Deficiency Week and would be most grateful for your intervention in forwarding the three attachments with this email to every General Practitioner within your own
Clinical Commissioning Group. Because there is ample evidence of many Primary Antibody Deficient patients waiting at least seven years before final diagnosis, the attachments endorsed by our Medical Advisory Panel provide clear diagnostic guidelines which we are sure will be helpful to many GPs. One of them is a simple A4 poster showing a number of repeating conditions in adults or children that can point to an as yet undiagnosed primary antibody deficiency.
UKPIPS will be deeply grateful if you are able to action our request to forward this information to all your GPs and we will also be delighted to answer any queries you might have on this condition as a whole.
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· King’s College Hospital Rheumatology GP Survey
The Rheumatology Department at King’s College Hospital want to find out how they can help you to keep up to date with the rapidly advancing field of Rheumatology. We would be very grateful if you would take the time to complete this very short survey to help us understand how we can help each other
We want to strengthen the bridges between Rheumatology and local GPs by providing more information about our services, treatments and referral pathways. We manage a wide spectrum of autoimmune rheumatic conditions from early inflammatory arthritis and metabolic bone diseases through to complex connective tissue pathologies such as lupus and vasculitis.
To this end we would like to run a “meet the department “ forum where we can hear what the primary care sector is interested in gaining from us and offer opportunities for education and professional network building. We would hope to build this into a forum where we could hold regular meetings to provide advice, pathway and service planning etc. In addition we would hope to incorporate Rheumatology updates aimed specifically at busy GPs.
The following questions seek to gauge how we should start this process and what material you would like covered. We would be very grateful if you would take the time to complete this very short survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/G7J9FG2
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· Osteopathy provision in Lambeth
Practices are reminded that the Lambeth Integrated Musculoskeletal Service (LIMS) provides a range of MSK treatments. One of the manual therapies offered by the service is osteopathy, to which patients will be directed if, at the point of assessment, this is deemed the best treatment option for them. The service also focuses on evidence-based exercise and self-management approaches for patients, and is provided from 8 sites across Lambeth.
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· Introducing self-management uk courses across Lambeth for patients with chronic obstructive airways disease presenting with MRCI to MRCIII (Please see attached flyer (6))
We would like to take this opportunity to introduce self-management UK who will be providing courses for our patients with chronic obstructive airways disease (COPD). Self-management UK provides self-management programmes to improve the lives of individuals who live with one or more long term condition. The programmes engage patients to manage their conditions more effectively. Recent research has shown that patients who attend this programme
· Increase their skills and confidence to manage their condition, leading to improved clinical outcomes.
· Are more confident in their Improvements in communication skills, creating effective care planning partnerships with their health care professionals.
For further details on SMUK Courses, please see attached flyer
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· Southwark and Lambeth Integrated Care Citizens’ Forum - Tuesday 12th May 2015 (Please see attached flyer (7))
The next Citizens’ Forum will be held on Tuesday 12th May from 6.30pm-9.00pm at Cambridge House, 1 Addington Square (off Camberwell Road), SE5 0HF
To book your place please contact us via:
Email: Phone: 020 7188 7188 x55290
Eventbrite: https://citizensforummay.eventbrite.co.uk
Please find attached the flyer for your waiting/reception areas
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· Changes to the Choose & Book Website
There have been some important changes made to the Choose and Book website which all NHS and Independent Sector staff with a Choose and Book role should be aware of:
· Patient information about Choose and Book is now available on the NHS Choices website; this includes tools and guidance about choosing a hospital and waiting times as well as the link to booking their appointment (www.nhs.uk/referrals)
· Staff information, specifically latest news, reports and live service information is now available on the HSCIC website (systems.hscic.gov.uk/chooseandbookupdates).
· Older content can still be accessed via the archived Choose and Book website.
Please forward this email to any colleagues who work with Choose and Book who you think needs to know about these changes.
If you have any questions please email
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· Money Champions (Please see attached flyers (8- 8a))
I am pleased to announce that we now have over 100 trained Money Champions working across Lambeth! These are all local residents, volunteers and employees equipped with skills in listening, offering useful tips and signposting to vital professional services that can help people facing financial difficulty.