Download this week’s GP Weekly Update here which features the following updates:
- COVID-19: New Advice for Pregnant Women
- COVID-19: Vaccine Animations to Help Tackle Disinformation
- COVID-19: Green Book Update
- COVID-19: Coronavirus Restrictions: What You Can and Can’t Do
- NMC Consultation on the Future of Community and Public Health Nursing
- GP Career Support Hub
- Mental Health Support Service for Primary Care Health Teams
You can download a pdf version here
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COVID-19: New Advice for Pregnant Women
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recently issued updated advice that pregnant women should be offered the COVID-19 vaccine at the same time as the rest of the population, based on their age and clinical risk group.
Following the update, NHSEI have written to local vaccination sites about the next steps and the actions to take, which include offering pregnant women a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine or Moderna vaccine. Pregnant women who commenced vaccination with AstraZeneca, however, are advised to complete with the same vaccine.
Therefore, all vaccination sites who are offering the Moderna or Pfizer BioNtech vaccine must ensure that pregnant women are able to book appointments for their first vaccination at the same time as non-pregnant women.
COVID-19: Vaccine Animations to Help Tackle Disinformation
There’s still some vaccine hesitancy, so NHSEI has launched a number of animations aimed at tackling disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, particularly wanting to encourage uptake in ethnic minority groups.
The animations, covering key topics such as vaccine safety, how it was tested, how it was developed so quickly, what’s in it, and what the side effects are, are suitable for use on social media platforms, so you can add them to your Practice website, Facebook and Twitter pages.
Here are the links to the short and the long versions of the videos, and they’re also available on YouTube.
COVID-19: Green Book Update
The COVID-19: Green Book, Chapter 14a was updated last week to incorporate the recommendations for phase 2 of the programme and additional information on the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
(COVID-19) Coronavirus Restrictions: What You Can and Can’t Do
Since some of the rules on what you can and cannot do changed on 12 April, many restrictions still remain in place. Although non-essential retail and most outdoor attractions can reopen, and even indoor leisure and sports facilities can reopen for individual exercise, with your household or support bubble, here’s a reminder for you and your staff about what you can and cannot do – What’s Changed?
NMC Consultation on the Future of Community and Public Health Nursing
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is seeking views, from the public and healthcare professionals, on its draft standards for specialist community public health nursing (SCPHN) qualifications and specialist practice qualifications (SPQs). Among the roles covered by the standards include health visitors, occupational health nurses, school nurses, district nurses and general practice nurses.
The new standards set out the knowledge and skills that practitioners need to deliver complex modern care and improve public health, and to support specialist nurses to provide expert care to patients at home, in the community, at a GP surgery or accessing public health services. The consultation documents, including the draft standards, can be found on the NMC website.
The consultation will run for 16 weeks from 8 April until 2 August 2021, and webinars and events will be running from 22 April, with the Future specialist practice qualifications (SPQs): general practice nursing webinar taking place on 25 May. If you would like to respond to this consultation, please complete the consultation survey.
GP Career Support Hub
We know how hard it can be for Practices to recruit and retain valued GPs. NHSEI have funded and developed different schemes to help GPs carve out a career pathway customised to their individual ambitions.
The GP Career Support Hub has been created on FutureNHS to help doctors understand what options are available to them at different stages in their career.
Mental Health Support Service for Primary Care Health Teams
NHSEI have reinforced their mental health support offer for all healthcare staff, including primary care health team members in general practices, to ensure they have rapid access to mental health services and support.
This includes creating 40 local staff mental health and wellbeing hubs which offer a rapid clinical assessment by a mental health professional and access to talking therapies, secondary care mental health services, and other services if they’re needed.
An enhanced mental health service is also in place to refer primary care health team members who may have more complex needs, which offers access to prescribing clinicians, additional services and interventions focused on trauma. GPs can self-refer to the service, but there is a wide range of wellbeing support for all primary care health team staff, which can be accessed on the Our NHS People website.
At QCS, we have also reviewed our Stress and Mental Health in the Workplace Policy and Procedure.