Coventry & Warwickshire COVID-19 Portal

 

Primary Care Coronavirus briefing – Coventry and Warwickshire – 26 May 2020 

 

**Please find below the latest 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 information for primary care, visit: https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/primary-care  

 

Today’s topics – use the links to jump to each section

 

**Latest local picture**

**Local updates** 

**Latest updates for each PLACE (Coventry and Rugby, South Warwickshire, Warwickshire North)**

 

Latest national picture

Communications from NHS England

Actions for Primary Care

 

TODAY’S ATTACHMENTS 

 

• Item 3: A new Diabetes Advice helpline has been launched to support people living with insulin-treated diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic: NHS Diabetes Advice helpline FAQs and materials.pdf

 

• Item 6: UHCW Radiology Unexpected Significant Findings Reporting – report will now be sent via email not fax: GP Communication Fax to e mail - USF reports Final.docx

 

• Item 7: A patient information leaflet from UHCW for patients attending for surgery: Enc. 03 - PIL Surgery during the COVID-19 Pandemic.pdf

 

LATEST LOCAL PICTURE

Please remember: we are issuing the briefing twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday) communications via: warnoccg.covid19primarycarecommunications@nhs.net. 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.

 

Coventry and Warwickshire COVID position up to 26.05.2020

• 2,239 cases now confirmed in Coventry and Warwickshire (+39 / +1.8% from Friday)

• 82 of these are currently admitted (-18 / -18.0% from Friday)

• 729 beds still available (+44 / +6.4% from Friday)

• 3 ITU beds occupied by Covid patients (-3 / -50.0% from Friday)

• 463 reported deaths in a hospital setting (+9 / +2.0% from Friday)

 

Care Home current position as at 26.05.2020

• 218 Covid related deaths in care homes (+3 / +1.4% from Friday, note some of these deaths may have occurred outside of the home and so may be counted in the figure above)

• 541 Care home deaths in total (+4 / +0.7% from Friday)

• 669 confirmed cases (+3 / +0.5% from Friday)

o Confirmed care home cases broken down by CCG:

o Coventry & Rugby: 329

o South Warwickshire: 230

o Warwickshire North: 110

 

LATEST LOCAL UPDATE

1. RCGP and AHSN Network: Primary care in care homes during COVID-19 webinar

 

This webinar will share examples of current good practice and collaboration between primary care and care homes, including resources to support virtual ward rounds. Chaired by Dr Jonathan Leach OBE, RCGP Hon Sec and COVID lead, join Dr Gail Allsopp, RCGP Clinical Policy Lead, Anita Astle MBE, Managing Director of Wren Hall Nursing Home in Nottingham, and Dr Alison Tavaré, Primary Care Clinical Lead at West of England Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) to explore:

 

• RCGP ‘top tips’ for GPs caring for care homes

• Providing person-centred care in times of COVID-19 

• COVID-19 virtual wards

• Resources to support virtual ward rounds

 

This will be followed by a Q&A session. The webinar will be held on Wednesday 27 May, 3-4pm and you can register here. It will be recorded and shared afterwards.

 

This is the second in a series jointly organised by the Royal College of General Practitioners and the AHSN Network. You can watch the first webinar here: COVID-19: Patient assessment and the role of physiology and oximetry.

 

2. Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCD) - Original Document

 

You may recall that when we requested that all MCCD's were scanned and emailed to our offices we asked you to keep safely the original document for collection later. Now that things appear to a bit quieter we would like to take the opportunity to request that you post the batch that you are holding to the relevant office so that we are able to collate ready to be sent to the General Register Office in the usual way - addresses below.

 

Although we are now in the recovery phase death registrations will continue to be completed by telephone for the foreseeable future, we would therefore ask that you continue to scan and email the MCCD as you are doing and when you have another batch please post them to the office.

 

We are very grateful for all your help and support in the last couple of months with the transmission of MCCD's. Families have greatly appreciated the simplicity of the telephone registration process which has enabled unnecessary contact at this time.

 

Thank you very much,

 

Diane Lampard

Registration Manager/SR, Warwickshire Registration District

 

Business and Customer Services

Resources Directorate

Warwickshire County Council

The Register Office

5 Bloxam Place

Rugby

CV21 3DS

 

3. New diabetes helpline promotional materials

 

A recent media release has highlighted the support available for people living with diabetes which you can find here. A new Diabetes Advice helpline has been launched to support people living with insulin-treated diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The helpline offers clinical advice for people who cannot access their usual care teams due to local service disruption. It is designed to help take some pressure off local GP practices and NHS 111.

 

Please find attached a one page FAQ for local healthcare professionals along with promotional materials that local GP practices and diabetes specialist teams can share with potential helpline users; including social media content, newsletter copy, a template letter and email. (Attachment: NHS Diabetes Advice helpline FAQs and materials.pdf)

 

4. Equality and Diversity survey

 

Please complete this online survey by EquIP to help capture and address the equality issues that affect both individuals and communities particularly during the Covid-19 outbreak. 

 

EQuIP is the Equality and Inclusion Partnership, a charity working across Warwickshire to promote equality and diversity. They will use the results of this survey to work with key service providers to make sure any concerns are addressed.

 

5. Primary care wellbeing survey – reminder

NHS England is looking to understand the current wellbeing of the primary care workforce, and invites you to take part in a short survey undertaken by the Institute for Employment Studies to support this and to support the wider evaluation of the #lookingafteryoutoo primary care coaching offer. The survey will take no longer that five minutes to complete and will contribute to their ongoing response to support your wellbeing. 

 

LATEST UPDATES FOR EACH PLACE

UPDATES FOR Coventry and Rugby and Warwickshire North – 26 May 2020

6. UHCW Radiology Unexpected Significant Findings Reporting

 

UHCW Radiology Unexpected Significant Findings were previously highlighted to practices via Fax, this will be sent via a nhs.net–nhs.net communication from 1 June. The radiology team have contacted each practice to confirm appropriate email address. As with the fax process, practices are asked to acknowledge receipt of USF Report. As a safety net, practices will be followed up by telephone within 72 hours, if acknowledgement of USF report is not received. Full details are attached. (Attachment: GP Communication Fax to e mail - USF reports Final.docx)

 

7. UHCW Patient Information Leaflet (PIL): Surgery during the COVID-19 Pandemic

 

A patient information leaflet that was approved at UHCW to be sent out to patients before elective surgery. They have requested that this is shared with practices. (Attachment: Enc. 03 - PIL Surgery during the COVID-19 Pandemic.pdf).

 

UPDATES FOR South Warwickshire – 26 May 2020 

No updates this issue.

LATEST NATIONAL PICTURE 

 

• As of 9.00am on 25 May 2020, 3,532,634 tests have been carried out in the UK, (with 73,726 tests carried out on 24 May) and 261,184 have been confirmed as positive. The number of COVID-19 associated deaths in the UK is 36,914. (Please note: there is now an improved daily reporting system for deaths, so that deaths in all settings are included, wherever the individual has tested positive for COVID-19, rather than just those in hospitals. On the old measure there would have been 29,830.)  

• Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a statement at the daily coronavirus press conference on 25 May 2020 here

• Slides, datasets and transcripts from press conferences at 10 Downing Street here.

• Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out a timeline for retail to reopen in June.

• The latest government advice on coronavirus is available online.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM NHS ENGLAND

 

8. NHS England Primary Care Bulletin – new edition – 26 May

 

COVID-19: latest guidance for general practice is issued in the NHS England Primary Care Bulletin (26 May) and this edition has details of the RCGP and AHSN Network: Primary care in care homes during COVID-19 webinar. This regular COVID-19 Primary Care Bulletin is from Dr Nikki Kanani and Ed Waller and you are encouraged to sign up here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/email-bulletins/general-practice-bulletin/. 

 

9. Media enquiries 

Our communications team is here to support you if needed. If you are approached by the media, please forward on to your local communications team: agem.communications@nhs.net. Outside of working hours the communications team can be reached via 01522 537887.   

 

ACTIONS FOR PRIMARY CARE

Please complete the primary care wellbeing survey.

Note the details of the upcoming Primary care in care homes during COVID-19 webinar.

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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.

 

Please note: the CCG has made the decision to use every email distribution list at its disposal in order to ensure as many people as possible receive these important updates. If you no longer wish to receive these updates, please reply to this email and we will remove you from the distribution list.

 

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.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/primary-care/