COVID-19: 25th May COVID-19 round-up for primary care
We would like to recognise and say a huge thank you to all the care home clinical leads for stepping up to support the early introduction of weekly home rounds or ‘check ins’, it’s been a year since all care homes across the country were given a named clinical lead at the start of the pandemic. They provided and continue to provide personalised care and support plans for care home residents in very challenging circumstances.
In addition, thank you for the pivotal work in the ongoing race to vaccinate the most vulnerable against COVID–19. We have seen the amazing partnership work between our GP teams, community clinicians and care homes and this is a true testament to the ethos of Enhanced Health in Care Homes (EHCH) which will drive our work forward in the coming year.
The vaccination programme overall hit another important milestone at the weekend, hitting 50 million vaccinations.
This could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of primary care network and community pharmacy vaccination sites.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Reminder to continue to perform Lateral Flow Device testing amongst asymptomatic staff
It is important that we protect all patients and NHS healthcare workers, vaccinated or not, by ensuring that all NHS healthcare workers continue to maintain regular asymptomatic testing and keep following infection prevention and control guidance to stop onward transmission. Around 9 in 10 NHS healthcare workers have now received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, however, there are thousands of people, including staff working in patient-facing NHS roles that will not have been vaccinated. Lateral flow device tests are the most commonly used COVID-19 test and all healthcare workers have been provided with kits to test themselves twice a week at home. Carrying out a lateral flow test is strongly encouraged but not mandated, however, reporting the results (positive, negative and invalid) is a statutory requirement for a notifiable virus. Any positive lateral flow tests must be followed by a confirmatory PCR test. Please continue to encourage your primary care teams to regularly perform lateral flow device tests for asymptomatic staff, to ensure all patients and staff are protected.
Local Vaccination Sites: Additional trained personnel on stand-by to support the vaccine programme
A National Workforce Support offer is available to provide additional capacity, over and above your local workforce teams to help with the vaccination programme.
This includes over 100,000 additional trained staff and volunteers ready and available to be deployed across the country from NHS Professionals, NHS Volunteer Responders and St John Ambulance, giving you immediate access to both clinical and non-clinical staff and volunteers. All workers have been fully vetted and trained and the volunteers cover a wide range of positions including vaccinators, stewards, patient advocates and post vaccination observation. Recent guidelines have also been updated to allow unregistered vaccinators with experience to now be able to be deployed to administer Pfizer.
Contact your Lead Employer, via your local Integrated Care System (ICS), who is the workforce hub for all local providers in your area, including access to additional staff.
For more details, please see LVS Workforce and the recently published NHS guidance for PCN groupings and community pharmacy.
Community Pharmacy Assurance Framework
The 2021/22 Community Pharmacy Assurance Framework (CPAF) screening questionnaire will be available for completion between Monday 28 June 2021 and Friday 24 July 2021 via the NHSBSA MYS portal. This reinstates the process following suspension in 2020/21 due to the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contractors are reminded that taking part in this process, as requested, is now mandatory. The screening questionnaire consists of 10 questions asking contractors about how they are meeting their contractual obligations. After the completion window closes and responses have been reviewed NHS England and NHS Improvement will select pharmacies to complete the full CPAF questionnaire and/or receive a monitoring visit. Contractors will receive further information via NHS Mail from the NHS BSA.
COVID-19: 27th May COVID-19 round-up for primary care
The COVID-19 vaccination programme, the biggest in health service history, continues its rollout to people in their thirties. It is now open to people aged 30 – 31 and this cohort can book at over 1,600 available locations. The plan remains to offer first doses to all adults by the end of July. Thank you once more for your continued hard work, we couldn’t have done this without you.
Over a million more flu vaccinations administered by community pharmacists during 2020/21
Community pharmacy teams have administered over a million more flu vaccinations under the national Flu Vaccination Service during 2020/21 than the previous year – a 62% increase. The NHS Business Services Authority has published the Advanced Service Flu report which shows that community pharmacists administered 2.76 million vaccinations under the national Flu Vaccination Service in 2020/21, an increase from 1.72 million in the previous season.
National PCN webinar: Building and housing your primary care network team - 23 June 2021, 5.30-7pm
Dr Ursula Montgomery, GP and Senior Clinical Advisor for Primary Care and Emily Henderson, Deputy Director Primary Care Workforce will host the next in our series of PCN webinars for clinical directors, general practice teams, CCGs and integrated care system leaders.
This event will focus on the multi-disciplinary team in a primary care network with colleagues joining us from around the country to share their experience of working together as a team and the benefits to local populations. We will also look at ways to accommodate your new workforce making full use of your estate. You will hear from Andy Bennett, National Clinical Director MSK conditions. There will be an opportunity to ask questions throughout the event and share your feedback on how nationally and regionally NHS England and NHS Improvement can support you and your PCN. Please register to attend here.
Dates for your diary: Thursday 3 June, 1.30pm – 2.30pm
Boosting vaccine confidence within African and Caribbean communities
