GP Bulletin Thursday 16th March 2023
GP Bulletin Thursday 16th March 2023
The GP Confederation Bulletins are now issued once a week on Thursdays. Additional bulletins may be issued on other days if there are key messages and information that will support practices in relation to current staffing and workload challenges.
1. Launch of new Development Programme for Practice Managers, Deputy PMs, and other Practice Staff in Management/Supervisory Roles
City and Hackney Training Hub is delighted to announce the launch of a new development programme for Practice Managers and other practice staff in management/supervisory roles. The programme has been funded by the Training Hub and so is free for practice staff.
The programme has been developed in response to feedback from Practice Managers in City and Hackney, and provides 10 short on-line modules covering some of the key essentials that Practice Managers said would be helpful. The programme includes modules on the following:
- HR and Employment Law
- Managing Stress at Work and Sustainable Behaviour
- Time Management
- Being CQC ready
- Coaching and Mentoring Teams
- Developing leadership skills
All the modules are on-line on MS Teams and last between 60-90 mins. The programme starts in April and runs up to December, and each session has up to 20 places.
These sessions are for Practice Managers and Deputy/Assistant PMs, but are also for any other staff you think would benefit as part of their development, including Reception Leads/Managers. New Practice Managers, aspiring Practice Managers, and Practice Managers who have not had any formal training are encouraged to attend as many of the modules as possible. You do not have to take part in all sessions, you may pick and choose the ones best for you and your staff. Please book on as many as you wish and consider which would be of value to your staff and book them on too. We would like to see all these slots filled!
The sessions are run by a company called Practice Index because all their staff have worked in general practice – so they know what your working life is like.
We hope you find this development programme useful and exciting and we will be seeking feedback from participants about whether this development approach is helpful.
Details of the sessions and how to book are contained in the attached flier about the programme.
If the links in the flyer do not work for you, please click on the links below:
Managing Pressure at Work and Sustainable Behaviour – 20th April
Effective Time Management – 27th April
Coaching & Mentoring Teams – 11th May
Developing Resilience – 17th May
HR & Employment Law Update – 7th June
Employment & Contractual Responsibilities – 16th June
Being CQC Ready – 6th September
CQC: Understanding the New Framework – 4th October
Patient Registration Process – 1st November
Leadership in Primary Care – 5th December
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Elizabeth Okoli, Programme Manager, City & Hackney Training Hub at elizabeth.okoli@nhs.net, or Janet McMillan at the GP Confed at janet.mcmillan2@nhs.net
2. Mandatory Learning and Disability Autism Training
The Government has introduced a requirement for Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered service providers to ensure their employees receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role. This is to ensure the health and social care workforce has the right skills and knowledge to provide safe, compassionate and informed care to autistic people and people with a learning disability. This requirement is set out in the Health and Care Act 2022.
Please see below the link to the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training which is now live on the HEE e-learning for Health platform:
The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism is delivered in one of two Tiers. It is the practice responsibility to ensure their staff have the appropriate training for their roles and they will need to advise staff on whether they should complete Tier 1 or Tier 2.
Tier 1
Tier 1 of The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism is for people who require general awareness of the support autistic people or people with a learning disability may need.
Tier 2
Tier 2 of The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism is for people who may need to provide care and support for autistic people or people with a learning disability.
Staff only need to do one training package either Tier 1 or Tier 2, whichever is most appropriate to their role.
For more information on the requirements please visit the CQC website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/training-staff-support-autistic-people-and-people-learning-disability
3. Contracts End of Year 2022/23 and Contract Changes 2023/24
Thank you to all those who attended yesterday’s Confed meeting with practices, we hope you found it useful and informative. Please see the slide deck below for you to 5.share with your practice teams:
Contracts Presentation for members meeting 15.3.23 (buletin)
Please see the recording link below for you to share with your practice teams:
Bi-monthly meeting with practices-20230315_133212-Meeting Recording.mp4
These are also available in the Contracts section of our website.
4. End of Year Quick Wins Guidance
As we come to the end of the financial year, the CEG has helpfully created a quick wins guide to check your coding and maximise your practice performance across QOF and IIF and some of the Confed contracts – 2022-23. Follow this link or see attached End of year – Quick wins for QOF and IIF
End-of-Year-6.2022-23—Quick-wins – QoF-IIF-C&H Contracts
5. CEG Tuesdays – online every Tuesday at 2pm between now and end of March – for City & Hackney Practices only
CEG Tuesdays is an online support forum run by local CEG facilitators in conjunction with C&H GP Confederation, with the aim of answering queries about CEG tools (searches, templates, alerts, forms, dashboards, or APL tools) or City and Hackney contracts. Practices are welcome to bring any queries for CEG or Confederation staff to this meeting.
During March sessions are aimed at supporting practices with their contract achievement. E-mail shazia.shahzad@qmul.ac.uk or l.o.rivastaquias@qmul.ac.uk to add an item to the agenda, or to be added to the mailing list.
Joins us and the CEG on Tuesday at 2pm using the following link:
CEG Tuesdays
6. Latent TB
Practice Activity
Practices are making great progress in screening patients at high risk of Latent TB infection. As a reminder City & Hackney has a target of 360 patients to screen by 31.03.2023 and each practice has a minimum target to achieve.
To help practices see their current position we ran EMIS searches on 10.03.2023 to highlight the number of tests needed to meet the minimum target and patients in need of further invitations; please see attached document. Practices who have achieved their minimum target can continue screening and this activity will be paid at year end.
Updated EMIS searches
The latest version of EMIS searches are v11.7. Please copy this version into your practice domain.
Patients are to be invited a maximum of 3 times. Practices should run the latest support searches and invite patients who require a 2nd or 3rd invitation.
Screening of eligible patients
Practices will be paid:
- £25 per latent TB blood test
- £2.50 per invitation (capped at 3 attempts)
- Bleeds activity to be paid under Phlebotomy contract
- £2.50 for further invitation following an indeterminate blood result or a DNA blood test appointment
For any queries, please contact Ansley Magwaza, Contracts Manager: ansley.magwaza@nhs.net
Latent TB Practice targets 10.3.23
7. Mental Health Newsletter – March 2023
The February CEG dashboard for mental health has been published on the QMUL website for practices to view their performance nearing year end.
Practices are encouraged to focus on Anti-Psych reviews, as we have yet to achieve the minimum target of 55%, at which point funding is triggered. Once this has been achieved, only then will subsequent payments be made according to individual practice percentage achievement against respective patient registers.
To help give practices a final push, please see attached March newsletter with adapted CEG dashboard detailing some quick wins to boost achievement.
Included is a table with Depression, Anti-Psych and SMI annual review elements, who can carry them out, the mode in which they can do so, and the corresponding PCAs/decline codes with these elements.
Mental Health Newsletter March 2023
8. Calling Primary Care Staff in City & Hackney to join the local Primary Care Staff Bank Register
- Are you a Practice Nurse, Nursing Associate, HCA, Receptionist/Administrator, Phlebotomist or Medical Student interested in working some additional hours in GP practices in City and Hackney?
- Local GP Practices really need your help and support – we’d love to hear from you!
We are keen to recruit some additional staff onto our Primary Care Staff Bank. If you are interested, please contact Janet McMillan at janet.mcmillan2@nhs.net for further information about how to sign up.
Once you have been accepted onto the Register, you will be able to apply for vacant shifts in local GP practices via an app on your phone.
The pay rates for the different roles are the same at all practices as follows:
- Practice Nurses – £35 an hour
- Nursing Associates – £25 an hour
- HCAs – £20 an hour
- Receptionists/Administrators – £12.50 an hour
- Phlebotomists – £15 an hour
- Medical Students doing reception/admin or medical summarising work – £12.50 an hour
- Medical Students doing vaccination work – £20 an hour
To be accepted onto the register you will need to provide a copy of your current DBS clearance certificate, and qualified healthcare staff will also need to provide their professional registration details.
Staff on the Staff Bank Register will be paid for additional work by submitting an invoice through the app to the practice/s where you undertake additional hours.
Please note that staff will need to be responsible for paying their own tax on these earnings and will need to complete a tax self assessment return each year. Guidance on how to do this can be found on the Gov.UK website at www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns
If you have any queries about the Staff Bank Register, please contact Janet McMillan, Director of HR & Improvement at the GP Confederation, at janet.mcmillan2@nhs.net
We are keen to recruit some additional staff onto our Primary Care Staff Bank.
A reminder to all existing staff on the Staff Bank to upload your DBS onto Circular Wave, as this is now a mandatory field and is needed in order to be able to access any shifts on the system.
9. Staff Bank – Managing your Payment Reports on Circular Wave
You can now run ad-hoc reports on Circular Wave! Please watch this short demo video to see how easy it is.
This video will show you how to run ad-hoc payment reports and how to set a date to mark your reports as paid.
How to access your payment reports on Circular Wave:
- Log into https://app.circularwave.co.uk/
- Go to Time & Pay
- Click on ‘Manage Payment Run’
How to mark reports as ‘Paid’:
You are also able to set the correct date for your timesheets to be marked as paid – this is where the timesheet status changes to paid and staff receive a push notification.
- Open the relevant payment run and click ‘Edit’
- Select ‘Scheduled’ and set the date for ‘Mark as Paid’
- Save your payment run
Payment Schedule:
Currently, shifts are processed monthly and on the 4th of the next month, Practices receive their shift reports and staff invoices.
These are set to run at the end of the month by default but we can configure this schedule to your specific needs e.g. a weekly schedule.
Please get in touch if you would like to make any changes to your payment schedule (pavit.chandhok@circularwave.co.uk).
Please note staff are responsible for paying any tax owed on these earnings and will need to complete a tax self assessment return each year. Guidance on how to do this can be found on the Gov.UK website at www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns.
10. Sessional and Salaried GP Network Meeting – 1pm on Thursday 27th April 2023
Unfortunately the planned session on 10th March had to be cancelled as a result of poor attendance. The session has been rearranged for 1pm on Thursday 27th April and Dr Mark Rickets has kindly agreed to attend this session. All sessional and salaried GPs working in City and Hackney are warmly invited to this network meeting. If you have not received an invitation and would like to attend, please let Janet McMillan at janet.mcmillan2@nhs.net know.
The session will be chaired by Dr Jen Saw. Following a request made at the last meeting, Dr Mark Rickets has kindly agreed to join this session to talk about managing a portfolio career and juggling the demands of clinical work and his other clinical leadership roles and work.
These network sessions are an opportunity for salaried and sessional GPs working in City & Hackney to meet, network and share key issues. If there is anything that you’d particularly like to discuss, please let Dr Jen Saw know – Jen’s email is jennifer.saw@nhs.net
Please share this invite with colleagues who you think might be interested in attending. We are still trying to develop our contact list, so please do let Janet McMillan know if you have colleagues who you’d like us to invite to be part of this network.
11. Non-Medical Prescribing Course – LAST CHANCE to apply
This is the last chance to apply for the non medical prescribing course. See attached details below:
12. Zero Hour Open Letter – A message from Dr Sarah Williams
Doctors Association UK are calling on the Secretary of State for Health, Steve Barclay, to support the Climate and Ecology Bill as it goes through Parliament. This Bill would deliver an action plan to align UK policy with its agreed international climate and biodiversity targets.
They are hoping for as much pressure as possible on Mr Barclay – if you wish to add your name to the open letter they have written, calling on him to act, please sign it here https://www.zerohour.uk/health_letter/
All practice staff are eligible to sign, it is not just for doctors.