COVID-19: 10th September round-up for primary care
Risk assessments
We recognise the ongoing efforts across primary care to offer and complete risk assessments for staff, ensuring particularly BAME and other ‘at risk’ groups are kept safe. Where assessments have not yet been completed, we strongly encourage these reviews to be conducted rapidly.
Community pharmacy staff flu vaccination
To help protect community pharmacy teams from seasonal flu and ongoing Covid-19 risks, NHS England and NHS Improvement is asking employers to ensure that all their staff, including locums, are vaccinated as soon as possible. The national flu immunisation programme letter of 5 August 2020 outlined how people eligible for free flu vaccination will be offered this through local NHS arrangements.
Community pharmacy employers are asked to encourage and enable staff who are eligible for a free flu jab to take this up, and to make sure all other members of their teams are also vaccinated. This will meet their responsibility to protect their staff and patients and support the resilience of the health and care system. It is particularly important to ensure that staff in vulnerable groups, such as Black and Ethnic Minority employees, are adequately protected this winter.
The public marketing campaign to support the flu vaccination programme is due to commence in October. Vaccinations will be offered to those aged 50-64 in November and December.
The annual service specification and supporting patient group direction for the Community Pharmacy Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Service was published on 28 August 2020. Further updates will be shared in due course.
NICE quality standards for community pharmacy
New National Institute for Health and Care Excellence quality standards for community pharmacies were issued on 28 August 2020, setting out how they can support the health of the local population, what high quality care looks like and priority areas for the improvement of services. These include:
- offering advice and education to people with a long-term health condition or those looking for support to improve their health and wellbeing
- raising awareness of the health and wellbeing expertise and services available from community pharmacy teams
- developing and using local referral pathways and information-sharing practices
- using their skills and knowledge to support people from underserved groups.
Quality standards are intended to help providers to improve the quality of care they provide to patients and are more important than even during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for those risk factors that make patients more vulnerable to COVID-19.
The standards are also important, as achieving Healthy Living Pharmacy Level 1 status will become an essential service requirement for all community pharmacies later this financial year.
GPhC registration assessment to move online
The General Pharmaceutical Council has updated details on its website for provisionally registered pharmacists due to take the registration assessment. It is currently carrying out a procurement exercise to identify a provider to deliver an online registration assessment in late 2020 to early 2021 and will share the date and details on the new format as soon as possible. Trainees and provisional registrants will be given a minimum of two months’ notice of the date for the online assessment in order to prepare.How to communicate better with people with hearing loss
COVID-19 poses a unique challenge for health and social care professionals when talking to someone with hearing loss. Here are some important tips to help you communicate effectively.