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Chief
Executive Bulletin 28 September - 4 October 2001 |
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Hard copy versions of these publications can be ordered from the NHS Responseline 08701 555 455. Contents: NHS interest 1. Primary Care Trusts and Groups - Teenage Pregnancy Strategy: involving general practice NHS and Social Care interest 9. Research governance framework for health and social care: implementation plan Social Care interest 13. Improving older people's services: inspection of social care services for older people14. Carers In Employment: Report On Study Visits To Five Local Councils With Social Services Responsibilities 15. Charges for residential accommodation etc NHS interest
1. Primary Care Trusts and Groups - Teenage Pregnancy Strategy: involving general practice Fifty percent of under 16s and a third of 16-19 year olds use no contraception at first sex. Improving young people's access to contraceptive advice is a specific action point of the Government's Teenage Pregnancy Strategy to halve the under 18s conception rate by 2010. The development of client centred services is also key to the NHS Plan which includes an interim reduction target of 15% by 2004. The Teenage Pregnancy Unit (TPU) has published Best Practice Guidance on the Provision of Effective Contraception and Advice Services for Young People setting out the criteria by which services should be commissioned and provided. Local Teenage Pregnancy Co-ordinators, working in cross sectoral partnerships to implement ten year local strategies, have just completed an audit of clinic services against this guidance to identify gaps and plan improvements. The TPU has now issued a questionnaire to local co-ordinators to help them work with general practices to assess their accessibility to young people needing contraceptive advice. Primary Care Trusts/Groups, all of which should have a delegated lead on teenage pregnancy, are asked to support local co-ordinators in completing this audit by December 2001. Training and support needs identified in the audit will feed into the local strategy to help strengthen the role of general practice in increasing young people's uptake and use of contraception. Emerging issues with national policy relevance will be taken up by the TPU with DH colleagues and the relevant professional organisations. The Best Practice Guidance and GP audit questionnaire can be found on the TPU website: www.teenagepregnancyunit.gov.uk For further information please e-mail: Alison.Hadley@doh.gsi.gov.uk The Prime Minister announced on 19th March 2001 that the Government would invest £25m over three years to establish a number of teaching PCTs in disadvantaged and under-privileged areas. It has long been recognised that disadvantaged and under-privileged areas have a multitude of problems. Low income, poor housing and high unemployment often go hand in hand with issues of poor health, high rates of morbidity and mortality, high incidence of drug and alcohol abuse and teenage pregnancies. Disadvantaged areas are not confined simply to urban areas, they exist in rural and sometimes suburban communities. Too often these areas lack the capacity to meet the various challenges they face. It is also often the case that these areas find great difficulty in recruiting and retaining high quality primary care professionals. Teaching PCTs will be able to create new, attractive posts, which offer wider career development opportunities linked to part time clinical role and part time teaching/learning role. By establishing teaching PCTs in these disadvantaged and under-privileged areas, it is intended to attract additional high quality staff and bring much needed capacity into areas of need. http://www.doh.gov.uk/pricare/pdfs/teachingpcts.pdf Ref:25036 3. GP Appraiser Nominations Reminder. As part of a comprehensive range of measures to assure the quality of care that patients receive, all NHS doctors - GPs as well as trust employed doctors - are to be required to participate in annual appraisal. Part of the requirement for successful GP appraisal is the input from trained appraisers. In issue 83 of the Chief Executive Bulletin, Chief Executives were asked to complete the attached form, suggesting at least three suitable GP candidates from within their PCG/T to undergo training to become a GP appraiser. Chief Executives are reminded that the deadline for nominations is Friday 5th October. 4. Implementing "Pharmacy In The Future" - Funding For Clinical Governance And Local Pharmaceutical Services On 24 September, Hazel Blears MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health, announced that the Department was to make an additional £1.5m available to Health Authorities for 2001/02 as a result of its pharmacy programme "Pharmacy in the Future". £1m is to be used to promote clinical governance in community pharmacy and £0.5m to prepare for the introduction of Local Pharmaceutical Services. Revenue Limit Adjustments have already been issued. A letter from Jeannette Howe, Deputy Chief Pharmacist, to HA Pharmaceutical Advisers gives further information about the purpose of the funding and the way it has been allocated. For queries about these allocations, please contact Steve Holmes (clinical governance) (Tel (020) 7210 4938 Steve.Holmes@doh.gsi.gov.uk) or Theresa Prendergast (local pharmaceutical services) (Tel (020) 7210 5408, Theresa.Prendergast@doh.gsi.gov.uk). 5. Modelshire II - HSC (2001)3 / LAC (2001)4 - Implementing the NHS Plan: Developing services following the National Beds Inquiry asked health authorities, in collaboration with partner agencies, to produce estimates of their future requirement for general and acute beds and community beds and intermediate care in 2003/04 in order to deliver targets in the NHS Plan. Authorities were invited to use a planning tool known as Modelshire. The Circular advised that Modelshire would be updated during 2001 to incorporate Local Variation Analysis data for 1999/2000 and information about residential and nursing home beds. Modelshire II is now available and can be accessed through the Department of Health website at http//:www.doh.gov.uk/nbi. Any queries about the operation of Modelshire II should be addressed to modelshire@doh.gsi.gov.uk. Royal Brompton and Harefield have not as yet completed writing to all trusts concerning referrals to their collections. If your trust is making returns and you suspect that material may be held at RBH then please contact them so that they can check their collections. 7. UK CMOs Conference on Better Blood Transfusion Monday 29 October 2001 On 29 October the UK Chief Medical Officers will be holding a second one-day conference on blood transfusion. The conference is being hosted by the four UK Health Departments, the National Audit Office and the National Blood Transfusion Services. The main aim of the conference is to help set the priorities for blood transfusion in the National Health Service for the coming three to five years. Since the first conference in July 1998 and publication of the health services circular, Better Blood Transfusion (HSC 1998/224) blood services have rarely been out of the news. In the meantime the whole approach to clinical practice has changed, putting openness, patient safety and quality of care top of the health agenda. The conference therefore will explore how this important service can modernise the management of people at risk of blood transfusion, improve the safety of blood and transfusion practice, develop the evidence base and strengthen hospital transfusion committees. An important issue that will be considered is how to avoid the unnecessary use of blood in clinical practice in the face of decreasing supplies and numbers of blood donors. However the patient experience of blood transfusion must be a mainstay of the conference with particular reference to patient information and informed consent. The conference website is available on www.doh.gov.uk/bbt2 8. Survey on independent sector usage This is a reminder that it would be very helpful if the survey on independent sector usage could be completed by Friday 12th of October and returned to richard.llewellyn-davis@doh.gsi.gov.uk We would be very grateful if you could do this. The survey is currently available at www.doh.gov.uk/independentsurvey I understand that some of you have had some difficulty in accessing the website or downloading the questionnaire and answers spreadsheet. If you have any problems of this nature or further questions about the survey please contact Richard Llewellyn-Davies on 020 7972 5526. May I take this opportunity to thank those of you who have already returned a completed survey. NHS / Social Care interest 9. Research governance framework for health and social care: implementation plan Issue 55 of this Bulletin drew your attention to the Research Governance Framework and to action required to comply with its requirements. Following a baseline assessment of NHS care organisations at the end of May 2001, the Department has prepared an implementation plan. It will be available shortly on the Department's R&D web site at www.doh.gov.uk/research, with a letter dated 2 October 2001 from the Director of Research and Development, Professor Sir John Pattison. The implementation plan sets out targets in 2002 and 2003 enabling NHS care organisations to comply in full with the requirements of the Research Governance Framework by March 2004. For any NHS care organisation that does not have access by December 2001 to systems for notification of R&D and for checking ethical approval and informed consent, its Chief Executive is required to decide whether or not R&D should continue, and to report to the Department. Each research active NHS care organisation should prepare a local implementation plan. 10. Reminder - Supporting People Guidance Workshops Supporting People is led by DLTR in partnership with DH, the Home Office and DWP. Supporting People is a preventative service providing housing related support services for people to remain independent or gain independence in their own home. Existing funding streams for these support services will be brought together and placed into a specified grant paid by Central Government to be administered by local authorities in partnership with NHS bodies and the probation service from April 2003. Local authorities will be responsible for commissioning services in partnership with the NHS and probation. Please find attached information about a forthcoming series of Supporting People conferences in late October/November. The aim of the workshops is to provide commissioners with an overview of new guidance issued by DTLR. Further details and a booking form can be obtained from either Andy Lawson at SITRA, 233-234, Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8NW, Tel: 0870 906 3228 or the web site at http//:www.spkweb.org.uk/whatsHappening/2.1News.asp. 11. Care Trusts - Guidance on the Application, Consultation, Assessment and Establishment Processes, and the Governance Arrangements Guidance on the application, consultation, assessment and establishment processes, and the governance arrangements for Care Trusts were published by the Department on Thursday 27 September. Draft Regulations on this, together with Draft Regulations on Membership and Procedures will be issued for consultation shortly. Copies of the draft guidance can be obtained from www.doh.gov.uk/caretrusts/index.htm For further information on the role and nomination of Liaison Officers e-mail us at:< a href="mailto:bs@medical-devices.gov.uk">bs@medical-devices.gov.uk http://www.medical-devices.gov.uk Hazard Notice - MDA HN2001(03) Anaesthetic Breathing System Components: Risk of Blockages. * Supplementary Advice * This Hazard Notice was issued on the 26th of September August 2001 to NHS Trust and Health Authority Chief Executives. As usual, it was also faxed to Trust and Health Authority Liaison Officers for immediate action and for onward distribution as specified in the Notice. www.medical-devices.gov.uk/hn2001(03).htm Hylamer Polyethylene Components Sterilised by Gamma-Irradiation in Air. 1. Hylamer Duraloc Acetabular Liners, 2. Hylamer Ogee Acetabular Cups, 3. Hylamer Global Shoulder Glenoid Components This Device Alert was issued on the 26th of September to NHS Trust, Health Authority and Primary Care Trusts Chief Executives. As usual, it was also faxed to Trust and Health Authority Liaison Officers for immediate action and for onward distribution as specified in the Notice. Social Care Interest 13. Improving older people's services: inspection of social care services for older people CI (2001)18 - 01/10/2001 A new national agenda for older people's care was set out in Modernising Social Services and more recently in the National Service Framework for Older People. Taken together, they set out a radical programme for improving older people's services. Between October 1999 and November 2000 we conducted an inspection of social care services for older people in 21 councils. The purpose of the inspection was to evaluate the implementation of national and local objectives relating to the social care needs of older people, and the quality of outcomes for service users and their carers. We were particularly interested to see how well, so far as services for older people were concerned, social services were responding to the national policy agenda set out in Modernising Social Services. The enclosed report, Improving Older People's Services provides an overview of the main findings and key messages to emerge from the inspection. Link to report http://www.doh.gov.uk/scg/improvingobjs.htm 14. Carers In Employment: Report On Study Visits To Five Local Councils With Social Services Responsibilities The Government made a commitment in Chapter 3 (Carers In Employment) of the report of the National Carers Strategy, Caring About Carers, to support carers in maintaining contact with the world of work and to support carers already in work. A working group visited Ealing, Norfolk, Surrey, Hartlepool and Camden Social Services Departments. The team looked at how the councils were supporting carers and also at the implications for councils of operating carer-friendly employment policies. The report will be useful to all councils in informing the development of policy. The detailed report is available on the Government's carers website (http//:www.carers.gov.uk) in the Information Zone on Carers and Work. 15. Charges for residential accommodation: CRAG amendment no 15: National Assistance Act: (residential accommodation) (disregarding of sources) (amendment) (England) regulations 2001: Naltional Assistance Act (residential accommodation) (relevant contributions) (England) regulations 2001: determination under section 93 of the Local Government Act 2000 of the deferred payment grant for 2001/2002: National Assistance Act (residential accommodation) (additional payments) (England) regulations 2001 (and explanation of consequential amendment to the choice of accommodation directions 1992) LAC(2001)25 - 01/10/2001 This circular explains how regulations made under section 53 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 pave the way for the introduction of deferred payments by councils with social services responsibilities. It also contains correction in section 6 of the CRAG which appeared in LAC (2001)11 The documents in this bulletin
are Crown copyright but may be reproduced by NHS and Local Authority staff
without formal permission or charge for personal or in-house use - ©2001 Published by the
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