NHS England have published new guidance for practices to ensure that learning disabilities registers are comprehensive and up-to-date and vulnerable patients are given the opportunity to receive flu vaccines and annual health checks. We encourage all our practices to use this regularly to review their learning disabilities registers to ensure they are up-to-date so that the right patients are being invited to attend vaccinations and clinics.
A new debt and mental health form and process has just been introduced following a cross sector agreement with the BMA. New BMA guidance was been published on 1st October 2019 and a much shorter form has been introduced that can be completed by a wider range of healthcare professionals, thereby reducing the burden on GPs. As part of the agreement, GPs in England can no longer charge a fee for completing a DMHEF. The only contractual requirement is to answer Yes or No when asked when the indebted person has a mental health condition and if the answer is Yes, then to give the name of this condition.
Public Health England has just launched a major new mental health campaign, called Every Mind Matters with help from Royal family members, Prince William, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton and Megan Markle. Click the link below to watch the new video:
Public Health England launches major new mental health campaign
GPonline has reported that the online provider, Babylon GP at Hand, plans to expand into Manchester early in 2020. Naturally, practices in Manchester will be very concerned about this proposed extension of Babylon's services and the potential destabilising impact it could have. Cherry-picking largely healthier and wealthier patients at the expense of the poor and vulnerable is not what the NHS is all about nor should it be supporting. Practices want to be able to offer a full range of services to their patients, including clinically appropriate digital services and video consultations, but they are dependent on CCGs and NHS England enabling this. There is therefore an urgent need to upgrade practice IT and this must be the priority, not focussing on alternative providers.
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