PCIP Update - January 2022
Welcome to the iN TOUCH newsletter for January 2022
At the time of writing, our whole system remains under pressure and practices remain at the level of managed suspension of services, although some practices are currently able to work beyond this level. Services which support GPs remain working at a reduced level. We hope this update will provide reassurance that work is continuing on the Primary Care Improvement Plan (PCIP).
The revised Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) focuses on the transfer of provision of service from general practice to health and social care partnerships and health boards for the three priority areas for 2021-22. These are:
- Vaccination Transformation Programme
- Pharmacotherapy
- Community Treatment and Care
This edition will provide updates on the three priority areas and other workstreams.
Vaccination Transformation Programme (VTP)
Under 5s flu vaccination
The main programme for children aged 5 and under has concluded, with the current uptake at 63.8%. This is in line with last year’s uptake.
However, appointments are still available through localities. Please pass on the contact details for the relevant locality team, for any enquiries on 2 to 5 year-olds who require the flu vaccine. These numbers can also be used for children aged 6 months to 2 years who are at-risk and require the flu vaccine.
Area Contact Number
- Airdrie –Â 01698 753100
- Bellshill – 01698 801513
- Clydesdale – 01555 770635
- Coatbridge – 01698 754730
- Cumbernauld / Northern corridor – 01236 794113
- East Kilbride – 07968 624019
- Hamilton – 01698 823583
- Motherwell – 01698 755328
- Cambuslang and Rutherglen – 07789 650301
- Wishaw – 01698 354981 or 01501 826654
Adult flu vaccination
The adult flu vaccination programme is continuing with this being administered at drop-in clinics along with the covid-19 vaccine. In line with national guidance, delivery of the flu vaccine was temporarily paused before Christmas to focus on covid-19 boosters.
However, the flu vaccination programme has since restarted for people age 65 or over and those age 16 or over with an underlying health condition. Details of drop-in clinics are available at www.nhslanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk/covid-19-vaccine/#clinics.
Travel health
The VTP steering group undertook an options appraisal in December 2021 to consider the best way to deliver travel health. The favoured option was through community pharmacies.
Discussions are progressing with Community Pharmacy Lanarkshire to agree a service level agreement. Further updates will be provided in future editions of iN TOUCH.
Pharmacotherapy
Hubs
In order to establish pharmacotherapy hub sites, the first cohort of pharmacy support workers (PSWs) has been recruited and they are currently undergoing induction training. The next step is to develop a hub model where PSWs, under the supervision of clinical staff, will complete medicines reconciliation from locality hubs to progress pharmacotherapy service delivery and optimise the use of our practice-based clinical pharmacy staff.
The team is at the very early stages of establishing a hub model and need to test the model on a small scale before spreading to all practices in NHS Lanarkshire. Establishing the hubs is dependent on the identification of suitable hub sites within localities. The team will begin testing in the localities where they have secured accommodation in the first instance. To date, this is Airdrie, Bellshill, Hamilton and Wishaw – with work ongoing to identify bases in all localities.
Discussions involving the locality management teams and practices in initial localities are underway. There will not be immediate capacity to deliver hub services to all practices in an identified locality. This will progress as recruitment, training and premises identification continues allows. Further PSWs will be recruited to progress the model to allow all practices in hub site localities to benefit from the service.
Further updates will be provided in future editions.
Serial prescribing
Currently there are 38 practices involved with serial prescribing and there is a lot of support available to help more practices get on board. The serial prescribing process helps to reduce the workload of GPs, practice staff and pharmacists and is also of benefit to patients – by reducing the number of requests for repeat prescriptions.
A short video has been developed to detail the range of support available and the experience from a local practice.
View the video below or watch it at https://vimeo.com/658896858 (via Google Chrome if there are any issues).
Acute prescribing collaborative
Following on from the development of the serial prescription toolkit, Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) is in the process of establishing a learning network to focus on the management of acute prescribing processes within primary care.
There are six local practices involved – updates will be provided in future editions.
Read more about the acute prescribing collaborative via the Acute Prescribing Learning Network web page on Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s ihub.
Community Treatment and Care (CTAC)
This workstream has been refreshed and is now separate to urgent care, which will allow a focus on CTAC. This is one of the three priority workstreams and the operational group will oversee the work to completion. Updates will be provided in future editions.
Urgent care
The Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) test of change started in Cumbernauld and East Kilbride in November 2021. So far, the feedback from both patients and staff has been very positive.
Currently, four ANPs and two trainee ANPs are working between the two areas. A weekly dashboard is circulated to the team involved to monitor progress and address any issues.
The infographics below show the work the ANPs have been involved in so far.
These tests of change will inform the future urgent care model.
An urgent care workstream will be established soon to progress the work associated with the revised MOU of providing an urgent care service from 2023-24.
Additional professional services
Community link workers (CLW)
The community link worker programme has been a real success story, with the entire service being implemented and rolled out during the pandemic. There is a great working relationship with practices and this has allowed the CLWs to support 1,312 people in North Lanarkshire and 1,249 people in South Lanarkshire between March 2021 and December 2021.
Currently, 95 practices are engaged in some capacity with the programme and, of those, the service is being provided in 79 practices. A monthly dashboard has been developed to monitor progress and will be shared in future editions.
Other news
Vision Anywhere
NHS Lanarkshire’s Strategic Command group has approved the roll-out of the GP Vision system remote access software, ‘Vision Anywhere’ (VA). This will allow the user to remotely access a single GP practice’s Vision system or multiples practices’ systems, where practices agree to share their data for that purpose.
The investment in this software will be crucial for contingency purposes. It means that staff working in GP practices can access systems remotely, to ensure a continuity of service. This will build on the successful trial which ran in treatment rooms in the Hamilton locality from September 2021. It will also facilitate a technical solution to locality-based contingency arrangements, which will strengthen the current buddying contingency arrangements.
GP IT re-provisioning programme
The national GP IT re-provisioning programme is managed by National Services Scotland (NSS) with input and involvement from health boards through the national Service Management Board (SMB). Its aim is to provide a framework contract for the call-off of GP IT systems to replace those currently in use across NHSiS.
The national framework contract was established in February 2019, with two suppliers remaining on the framework, Cegedim (Vision) and EMIS. The project status nationally is amber on the grounds of slippage in respect of supplier readiness in terms of meeting the full requirements of the Scottish Application specification.
A local programme board was established in July 2021 in order to manage the processes of system choice, procurement and evaluation of framework supplier systems. NHS Lanarkshire is at an advanced stage to progress towards a system procurement starting in the first and second quarters of 2022. This will be done in consultation with GPs and other stakeholders within the health board.
GP Order Comms
The implementation of an Order Communications System across NHS Lanarkshire’s Primary Care Service is currently underway for general practice and is supported by the Vision interface and is progressing with work on a solution for EMIS interface. In addition to GPs there are centralised treatment rooms and district nursing services included in the transition.
The Order Communication System has introduced electronic ordering of laboratory requests and resulting, replacing the majority of current paper processes. Electronic orders, order status updates and review of results will be carried out using the GP clinical system. The services included are; biochemistry, haematology (excluding blood transfusion) and microbiology.
The project is currently a rolling project and the project team is 50% of the way through the locality roll-out, with a proposal of completion by the end of the first quarter of 2022.
Contact us
If you have an enquiry or would like further details about an article in this edition of iN TOUCH, please email LanGMS2018@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk
Read the December 2021 PCIP update.
