Avon LMCs Newsletter on 24-07-24

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The ALMC Newsletter

Welcome to our weekly newsletter, sharing the latest news and topics of interest for practices.

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– LATEST NEWS –

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I am writing this week’s blog in Shaba’s absence as she takes a well-earned break for a few weeks. I had hoped to be talking about the end of the school term and the exciting start to the school holidays which will be baked in sunshine.

However, the IT outage on Friday had an enormous impact on general practice delivery in BNSSG. I want to start by congratulating you on navigating this episode and continuing to deliver patient care in the absence of EMIS and other clinical systems. This will have been an incredibly tough day for all staff in our practices. Whilst the systems started to come back online towards the end of Friday and over the weekend, we will all be too aware of the knock-on effect into this week and the extra workload that our practices will be facing as a consequence.

Fortunately, significant IT disruption on this scale is rare but it serves as a timely manner to review and update our business continuity plans.

Hopefully, many of us will be taking breaks over the summer holiday period  and you will be able to enjoy some rest and recuperation.

Dr Lee Salkeld
Board Director Avon LMC

Question: Can we charge for coroner’s reports?
 
Answer: Prior to 2008 there was an agreement for a standard fee for a coroner’s report. However, once this agreement expired, nothing substantial replaced it. GP’s are allowed to submit invoices to the coroner for writing reports. However, I don’t know how many GPs submit invoices to the Coroner and how many of these invoices get paid. The following paragraph from the BMA website on this issue indicates that there is no recourse if a fee for a report is not paid by the coroner.
 
https://www.bma.org.uk/pay-and-contracts/fees/fees-for-doctors-services/coroners-court-fees-and-allowances
 
“Doctors have raised concerns with the BMA about not being paid for coroner reports or statements of fact which they are obliged to provide. Under the current system the coroner pays then reclaims funds from the local authority.

Although we have sought legal advice, there is nothing within the Coroners Act that clearly stipulates payments for reports or statements of fact. We therefore have no grounds to force the local authority or coroner to pay the fee.

We have also rigorously pursued this issue directly with the Chief Coroner, the Ministry of Justice and the Local Government Association, but with little success.
Where payment is not being offered, the BMA would advise doctors to complete the report otherwise they may face being summonsed.”

Avon LMC have written to the Avon Coroner to ask if they have a policy for GP report invoices. We will update you when we receive a reply from the Coroner.

Please see below details sent out by One Care.

The ICB has commissioned SCW CSU to provide DPO support to all BNSSG GP practices that wish to use this service. Lucy Hunt is the Data Protection Officer (DPO) providing data protection advice and guidance from 22 July. This includes reviewing data sharing agreements, data processing agreements; DPIAs; offering incident advice; and serving as a point of contact for individual rights inquiries requiring DPO involvement or liaising with the ICO.

Nick Hassey (nick.hassey@nhs.net) is the ICB contract manager for this service. Any practices wanting to take up the ICB-provided service should inform Nick. He is also the point of contact for any problems with the service or questions about the contract.

Andrew Barge will continue to assist BNSSG GP practices with all information governance queries, including subject access request advice; ad-hoc IG inquiries; incident advice; and DSPT support.  

Both are funded by the ICB, at no expense to your practice.
Lucy Hunt’s email: lucy.hunt11@nhs.net
Andrew Barge’s email: andrew.barge@nhs.net

• Tuesday 23 July General practice bulletin (mailchi.mp)
• Thursday 18 July General practice bulletin (mailchi.mp)

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– LATEST TRAINING AND EVENTS –

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• 25 July FCP Workshop – An interpretation of blood results in MSK cases
• 14 August Pelvic Health – Why it matters?  https://forms.office.com/e/QLtGHqWns8
• 15 August Getting the Best out of your Laboratory Tests: Blood and Infection Science Session https://forms.office.com/e/jgv3KziFCi
• 20 August CYP EduForum: Allergy https://forms.office.com/e/w8XvU4iW03

Please see here for full event details.
For further information please contact Bnssg.training.hub@nhs.net

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