Chair Update
Dear Colleagues , Members & Patients,
I hope you are all enjoying the recent glorious weather whilst still slapping on the SPF50 and keeping well hydrated!
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who voted in the recent NCL GPPA election for Barnet. There was a line-up of some really strong candidates and I wish them well in future leadership roles. I will do my very best to ensure that the voice of Barnet General Practice is heard alongside our NCL GP colleagues and is able to influence the strategic direction of NCL ICS for the benefit of our patients without adding to our ever increasing workloads in Primary Care.
I am now in my third month as Chair of BFG and continue to be proud of our team who help deliver the breadth and quality of services we deliver week in week out such as our community anticoagulation service, EHS and EAS. As you know, come October, responsibility for providing the latter 2 services will pass to PCNs. We will continue to work with CDs to support their delivery if we are sub-contracted to do so.
Whilst this is a big change for the organisation we are already in discussions to expand our portfolio of contracts. As before this allows to invest in support for our member practices such as Bluestream, Practice Index and our CQC help. If there are other areas that you feel your practices need support with, do let us know.
If you have an imminent CQC visit please email barnet.federation@nhs.net to see how we can help you.
Have a great rest of the summer and see you at our AGM in September.
Best wishes,
Dr Ahmer Farooqi
Headlines
Extended Access (EA) Offer Update
Extended Access is a service that receives consistently high ratings for patient satisfaction.
The Federation delivers pan-Barnet benefits in kind to all member practices, Our capacity to continue to deliver these benefits to the membership is currently contingent to a large extent on income from EAS.
EAS continues to see increases in demand and utilisation, with appointments released daily at 10:00 and 15:00 to help balance bookings. The service continues to be predominantly GP led. We have a good availability of shifts and a streamlined governance process to onboard various clinical roles.
The service is currently delivered by the federation, which are made up of predominately GP appointments. However 1st October, this will be network DES. We are currently working on service offer to support the networks in delivery..
As part of the transition from the current service to the new service specification, there are conversations underway to discuss Bank Holiday, Sunday and Saturday evening (non-network hours).
Access to the EMIS Community clinical system will be provided to the networks. The Federation will retain responsibility for managing and auditing user access in line with data protection and information governance requirements.
The Federation are working with the ICB and PCNs to complete the planning templates.
The executive team have been meeting with the individual PCNs to work through the operational considerations and service mobilisation plans.
The Federation will continue to work with the PCNs to complete the necessary planning, rotas, EMIS administration, and setting up the hubs prior to the service going live in October.
BFG Recruiting for BFG EAS service
BFGs will be onboarding new sessional GPs into the EAS service. If you would like to find out more about the onboarding process as well as sessions and how to book them or would like to join the Federation, please email: barnet.federation@nhs.net
Anticoagulation
The service is operating well, with an effective mix of clinical pharmacists providing good quality service delivery. If you would like to know more about the service, please contact: barnet.federation@nhst.net
Phlebotomy
The Federation continues to work with 5 of the 7 PCN in delivering the Phlebotomy service. The Federation has been streamlining the reporting requirements. Templates have been redesigned to reduce workload and make it easier for the PCNs to submit data and for the Federation to report this. Our aim is to ensure a streamlined and effective process.
Please refer to the support for our practices section for further details.
Date for your diary
Wednesday 3rd August 2022 at 13.00 – Social Care: Barnet Housing, DWP and Social Prescribing
Click here to join the meeting
For further practice support, training information and research updates please see below
Support For Our Practices
Welcome to our vacancy board – Do you have a vacancy or looking for a role in Barnet?
Advertising job opportunities via the Federation website!
Practices and professionals seeking job opportunities in Barnet can advertise through our website on our Pan Barnet Noticeboard: https://barnetfederatedgps.org.uk/pan-barnet-recruitment/
Salaried GP
Ongoing recruitment for Salaried GPs to work primarily in EAS and other Federation services. If you are interested and would like to be considered, please refer to the attached Job Description for more details, or email barnet.federation@nhs.net.
In-hours Practice Support
Initially offering to arrange GP sessions in response to ad-hoc practice requests during COVID, the service has now grown to provide upwards of 100 hours of GP capacity to practices each month.
Due to the high quality of support being provided, including receiving requests for the service as far in advance as November, we have notified practices that we can only take requests up to eight weeks in advance.
On some days, the number of requests and total demand for this service exceeds EAS capacity. We are working to understand how this service will interface with the bank staff project taking place across NCL.
SMI Checks
The Federation is pleased to announce the continuation of SMI physical health checks following a successful pilot delivered in the previous financial year.
Pilot performance saw a target of 175 health checks per month across. This will be increased to a target of 250 health checks per month from July 2022 to March 2023.
The reporting and payment process for SMI’s is being standardised into a simpler, easier to use format.
We will continue to incorporate links into the voluntary sector and other mental health service providers in order to provide targeted support.
Phlebotomy
To improve the reporting and payment process across PCN’s, we have been working to standardise both the reporting and payment process for Phlebotomy. Templates have been redesigned to reduce workload and make it easier for the PCNs to submit data and for the Federation to report this. Our aim is to ensure a streamlined and effective process.
Practices will shortly receive further details on this improved process.
Contractually there is no change with the initial phlebotomy service running until 7 November 2022. There is an option of a further extension until 31 March 2023, dependent on the ICB. Payments also remain at existing rates.
Paediatric bleeds continue as part of the service and are already incorporated into the performance target.
There is a broader piece of work taking place to evaluate this workstream via the CCG engaging with local boroughs.
Extended Hour Service (EHS)
The current contract remains extended to 30 September 2022. This continues to be in line with the DES changes effective from 1 October 2022.
The service has expanded to include all ARRS roles, which practices and PCNs are utilising to broaden their offer.
We continue to assess utilisation and activity with the aim of identifying opportunities allowing a targeted approach to increase utilisation and improve the effectiveness of the service.
To date, around one third of practices have taken up this offer. The offer will be superseded by the offer for the new Enhanced Access from October.
Please email the Federation Services team for further information: barnetfederatedgps.services@nhs.net
Extended Access Service (EAS) Appointments Provision & how to access Them
The EAS service continues to see high demand and utilisation, appointments are still released daily at 10:00 and 15:00 which helps to balance bookings.
The service is predominantly GP led with rota fill improving over recent weeks.
Appointments are released at the following times:
- Monday-Friday – 10.00 & 15.00 (on the day of the appointment)
- Saturday – 8:00am (on Thursday)
- Sunday – 8:00am (on Friday)
Alternatively, patients can book directly through the appointment booking line – 02039486809 – which is available Monday-Friday 18.30-20.00 and Saturday-Sunday 08.00-20.00.
When booking into this service, please provide updated contact numbers for the patient. This will ensure that the GP can successfully contact the patient to conduct the telephone or video consultation.
Please see attached the EAS appointments booking updated process for step-by-step guidance or for more information on bookings appointments, please email barnetfederatedgps.services@nhs.net.
Training Information and Opportunities
For all Barnet Training Hub events and training opportunities, please visit: https://www.barnetcepn.org.uk/
Find out how community mental health services are changing where you live
Join us to learn about the changes we are making to community mental health services and tell us what you think we should do next!
The NCL Community Mental Health Transformation Programme is working across Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington. Staff from each will be at Hornsey Vale Community Centre in Haringey, on 30 September, 1-4pm to talk about the work that they are doing and listen to your feedback. We are creating hundreds of new roles and investing £25m across three years. We want to ensure our services meet your needs.
We’ll be serving refreshments so you can have an informal chat over a cup of tea.
All welcome. Please circulate details widely and display the poster.
For further details, please contact Deborah O’Driscoll on: 07825 732633
Applications now open for the Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Practice 2022
Audience: GPs
HEE are offering a limited number of places on a Postgraduate Certificate in Healthcare Practice, to GP fellows as part of our London SPIN-New to Practice Scheme. The PG Cert comprises three 20 credit modules, with sessions delivered on the same day each week over 12 months during the Academic Year 2022-23. Any face-to-face teaching sessions and additional Masterclass sessions will be delivered in a London venue.
Please click here for further details. Or If you have any general queries about the SPIN/New to Practice fellowship scheme, please contact Nclccg.thgeneralpracticefellowships@nhs.net and one of the team will be happy to help.
HEE Nursing Survey: For the attention of General Practice
We are writing to seek your help and feedback on some work we are undertaking in Health Education England to support registered Nurses and Nursing Associates who are new to general practice. Your contributions can support the future NHS workforce supply and HEE values your time in completing the survey. The survey will take approximately five minutes and can be completed online via this link: Introductory Module for Nurses and Nursing Associates new to General Practice (Page 1 of 3) (office.com).
We would like to receive responses by Monday 8th August 2022.
We would be grateful if you could also forward this information to interested colleagues (registered nurses in your practice and GPs) as appropriate.
If you would like to find out more about what we would like to achieve through this survey, please see the refer to the additional document.
Insomnia Education Session
Date & Time: 20th September 2022 at 12.30pm – 2pm
Insomnia is very common in Primary Care, severely affects the quality of life of people suffering from it, and increases the risk of a person developing other mental and physical illnesses.
It is highly treatable with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), which is the NICE-recommended treatment, yet this is rarely provided and sleep hygiene is much less effective.
CBT-I techniques are simple to learn and pass on to patients.
This session will cover the most effective components of CBT-I, how GPs and other HCPs can incorporate them into short patient consultations, facts and common myths about sleep, and medications.
Please register for the session using this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/insomnia-tickets-388736319797
Wellbeing Training: Resilient Team Academy: Offer for 100 places for NCL staff
Did you know you now have access to an online leadership resource called The Resilient Team Academy? It’s a membership community specifically for leaders in Health and Social Care – and you now have full access to this powerful, practical online resource. Please click here for what you will find in the Resilient Team Academy.
In addition, please take 5 minutes now to log into the Academy, and we’ll make sure you know exactly how to get started. See you in there!”
HOW TO ACCESS THE RESILIENT TEAM ACADEMY: Just click here to go straight to the Resilient Team Academy
The human dimension of supervision – beyond the tick box
Audience: Educational Supervisors
Date & Time: November 22nd, 9am -12.30pm,
Venue: Stewart House, 32 Russell Square, London
This workshop is open to educational supervisors in London and KSS. It will be interactive and in person!
Please click here for further details on what the workshop will cover and who the speakers will be.
To register, please complete the registration form here. Numbers are limited to 20.
Please contact facultydevelopment.lase@hee.nhs.uk if you have any queries.