Primary Care Coronavirus briefing – Coventry and Warwickshire – 01/04/2020

1 April 2020
Attachments
Sent on behalf of the COVID-19 Incident Management Team for Coventry and Rugby, South Warwickshire and Warwickshire North CCGs

Primary Care Coronavirus briefing – Coventry and Warwickshire – 1 April 2020 

 **Please find below the latest daily primary care coronavirus briefing.**

Information provided by NHS Coventry and Rugby CCG, NHS South Warwickshire CCG and NHS Warwickshire North CCG in line with Public Health England guidance.

This information may change rapidly as the situation develops. For the latest infor-mation for primary care, visit: https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/primary-care

PPE update and CCG response

We’re aware that many of you have ongoing concerns about PPE, so we wanted to outline the actions the CCG are taking to resolve PPE issues.

As you will know, the CCG is required to follow the national guidance on the use of and purchasing of PPE. There have been numerous issues with this, particularly around availability of stock and the type of PPE being provided. Please be aware that we have escalated these issues almost daily to NHS England, including issues around the national hotline and email, practices being declined stock and the confu-sion of the ordering processes.

We have been looking into a number of local alternative routes of securing PPE for our practices, including progressing all leads received outside of the national supply chain including liaising with all our partner organisations including the acute trusts re-garding sharing of any available PPE stock, contacting dentists, local education pro-viders and businesses to obtain any PPE that they may have and accessing over-seas stock made available from China. The CCG has set up a PPE task and finish group to manage all of these options as well as helping to ensure the distribution of the correct equipment for practices and care homes.

In addition, we have been made aware of a new national service, launching next week, which will enable direct order and delivery of PPE for practices, which we will keep you updated on. 

Finally, we are working to secure the correct standard of PPE for our new “hot hubs”, to help protect them when they’re supporting the patients. We are expecting a deliv-ery of PPE equipment to support the new hot hubs imminently and will be in contact with those practices to arrange delivery. If you have any further concerns about PPE, please contact us on the COVID-19 email. 

**Latest local picture** 

**Local updates** **

Latest updates for each PLACE (Coventry and Rugby, South Warwickshire, War-wickshire North)

** Latest national pictureCommunications from NHS EnglandActions for Primary CareToday’s attachments•Coroner referral form.docx (item 1)

LATEST LOCAL PICTUREPlease remember: we are issuing daily (Monday to Friday) communications via: warnoccg.covid19primarycarecommunications@nhs.net which will now arrive in the afternoon between 3pm and 4pm. 

 We would also ask that if you have questions or concerns relating to the current situation around coronavirus and COVID-19 you use the same address: warnoccg.covid19primarycarecommunications@nhs.net. 

 Please keep us updated with any issues that you may be having so we can try to address them.Local cases (as of 31 March)•In the Local Authority of Coventry, there are a total of 108 confirmed cases

.•In the Local Authority of Warwickshire, there are a total of 161 confirmed cases.LATEST LOCAL UPDATECardiology Investigations services affected by COVID-19Please note the additional changes to services at SWFT, specifically for cardiology investigations:1. No ambulatory monitoring (BP or rhythm) will be provided.2. No NIPs will be provided.3. No routine outpatient echocardiography (except as part of Cancer pathway) will be provided4. Limited inpatient echocardiography service 5. No transoesophageal echocardiography service

LATEST UPDATES FOR EACH PLACEUPDATES FOR Coventry and Rugby – 1 April 2020 No updates in this editionUPDATES FOR South Warwickshire – 1 April 2020 

No updates in this edition

UPDATES FOR Warwickshire North – 1 April 20201. 

Coroners referral form – ATTACHED

The referral form should still be used as it complies with the latest guidance. The form is available on DXS for WN practices. The updated guidance is as follows: 

•If the doctor attending the deceased in their last illness is not available, or is unlikely to become available in a reasonable time, another doctor can certify the medical cause of death.

•If this happens and another doctor is able to give a cause of death to the best of their knowledge and belief, there is no need to refer the death to the coro-ner.

•Even with the more recent change in legislation, the situation remains that if there is no doctor at all who can sign the MCCD - for example, because a pa-tient who was previously well dies suddenly and unexpectedly at home - the coroner must be informed of the death.

Attachment: Coroner referral form.docx

LATEST NATIONAL PICTURE  

•As of 9am on 30 March 2020, 143,186 people have been tested in the UK and 25,150 were confirmed as positive. As of 5pm on 30 March 2020, of those hospitalised in the UK, 1,789 have died. (Please note: the figures for test results and for deaths are compiled from different sources. This is why the figures for deaths are reported from an earlier point in time than the fig-ures for test results.)

•The most up to date government advice on coronavirus is available online. 

•The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove provided a press conference on 31 March 2020, further detailing the government’s response to COVID19 and outlining the activity to source ventilators, a copy of the tran-script is available online. 

•The press conference slides and datasets used by Michael Gove MP in the daily coronavirus press conference on 31 March 2020 can be accessed online.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM NHS ENGLAND 

2. Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism (MHLDA) Covid-19 documents

The Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism (MHLDA) Covid-19 response cell has published the following documents on the NHS England website on Monday:
•IAPT guide for delivering treatment remotely during the coronavirus pandemic
•Legal guidance for mental health, learning disability and autism, and special-ised commissioning services supporting people of all ages during the corona-virus pandemic

3. NHS England Primary Care Bulletin – new edition

COVID-19: latest guidance for general practice is issued in the NHS England Pri-mary Care Bulletin (31 March) and contains updates on the Network Contract DES for 2020/21, NHS Volunteer Responders: guidance for primary care professionals and consultations for patients requiring non-spoken and spoken translation. This regular COVID-19 Primary Care Bulletin is from Nikki Kanani and Ed Waller and you are encouraged to sign up here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/email-bulletins/general-practice-bulletin

4. Primary Care webinar - reminder
The next GP Preparedness webinar is tomorrow, Thursday 2 April from 5-6pm. The link to access the webinar is https://bit.ly/covid19gp0204

5. NHS Friends and Family Test and COVID-19 
NHS England and Improvement has provided the following high-level advice about reducing burden and releasing capacity to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and this includes advice about the Friends and Family Test:

•Community services: “Cease data submission and collection with immediate effect”
•Primary care: “Practices will not be required to report to commissioners about FFT results”
•Acute providers: “Stop reporting requirement to NHS England and NHS Im-provement”

The measures are intended to allow for staff resources to be diverted towards more immediate priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

6. Supporting disabled people through the coronavirus outbreak 
 A joint statement from Justin Tomlinson MP, Helen Whately MP and Vicky Ford MP outlining how the government plans to support disabled people, their carers, and their families during the coronavirus outbreak.

ACTIONS FOR PRIMARY CAREPlease note the link for the Primary Care webinar taking place tomorrow.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES - updated 

We understand that journalists have begun asking some organisations about how many cases they are currently treating. The situation is so fast moving that any esti-mates are likely to go out of date quickly. Rather than trying to answer these ques-tions, if you are approached by the media and do not want to handle it yourself, please forward on to your local communications team: agem.communica-tions@nhs.net. Outside of working hours the communications team can be reached via 01522 537887.

ACTIONS TO TAKE 
 •Monitoring the latest updates from Public Health England and GOV.UK 
•Ensure your practice websites are updated with the latest advice
•Watch the GP Preparedness webinar tomorrow
•Ensure you promote the key public messages of stay home, save lives

Please note: This is the designated inbox for all Primary Care enquiries for practices across Coventry and Warwickshire, set up to help support practices and provide a single point of contact to send and receive information about the rapidly developing COVID-19 situation. Please be aware that guidance is changing regularly and we are endeavouring to keep you as up to date as possible.The inbox is monitored regularly, and we will respond to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, the latest guidance for primary care can be found here: https://www.eng-land.nhs.uk/coronavirus/primary-care/