Resource list for Islington General Practice: Primary Care Covid Vaccination Programme

Latest update: 10th December 2020

NOTE: for reference, at the bottom of this webpage is the text of the “workforce” email sent to practices on 9/12/2020 by PCN CDs

This page is designed to be a dynamic resource for Islington practices around the general practice Covid vaccination programme, bringing together key documents for ease and convenience. It will be updated as new information comes in, and should not be viewed as exhaustive and may fall out of date if things change rapidly.

The most up to date information, including SOPs, guidance and contract specifications is at:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccination-programme/primary-care-guidance/

Call and recall

Patient groups
NHSE have stated clearly that patients can only be invited for a vaccination in specific cohort order. Any vaccinations given to those outside of these groups will not attract a payment.

Please advise patients that they will not be able to receive a vaccine without an appointment.

Current groups for clinics w/c 14/12/2020:

  • Aged 80+ not housebound or in a care home

  • If there is capacity, then practice and PCN staff who have been deemed to be at high risk of Covid-19 complications can also be vaccinated (as measured by practice/organisation risk assessments

  • Housebound and care home patients will be the priority once logistics have been worked through around how the vaccine can be used in a ‘roving’ way – currently it needs to remain in one location so is not suitable.

Please note, the regional vaccination sites will also be contacting similar groups so your patients may already have been contacted. Notification will be received on the EMIS patient record around 24 hours after a vaccine has been given from any site.


Searches and identifying patients

There are two ways that practices can construct their call/recall lists:

1.  Run the EMIS search provided by the federation. This can be found in your EMIS Federation folder. This document explains how to access the search. Please contact jana.berjakova@nhs.net with any questions.

2.  Alternatively, there is a dashboard in HealtheIntent which provides the required search. Practices should have received emails from the HEI team concerning this.


Key points of caution and exclusion

Based on current knowledge

EXCLUSIONS:

  • Cannot be given in pregnancy

  • Flu or other vaccine within 7 days of the scheduled date of the covid vaccine.

CAUTIONS:

  • Women should not become pregnant within 2 months of the second dose of vaccine

  • Anyone who has had a severe allergic reaction as defined by anaphylaxis, carries or has been advised to carry an adrenaline pen or has historically carried one

  • Any known allergy to components of the vaccine (unlikely known as this is a new vaccine).

Full and up to date info re the vaccine is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-programme-guidance-for-healthcare-practitioners

Green book chapter here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-the-green-book-chapter-14a


Telephone scripts and proformas that might be helpful to use

These have been borrowed from elsewhere but might be a useful resource. Will add more as they appear:

Public facing materials used to support information giving and consent

Leaflets written by Public Health England are here, with some written specifically for older adults, health and social care staff, what to expect after vaccination, why some people will need to wait:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/covid-19-vaccination-programme#leaflets-and-posters

Patients should have consented to receiving the vaccination at the time of booking. It is understood that written consent is not required but consent should be documented in the patient notes.

There are materials to support consenting adults, which are all available here
and here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/covid-19-vaccination-programme#consent-forms-and-letters

There will be information and standard procedures around how to proceed in adults who lack ability to consent in the SOP document (due to be published imminently) here:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccination-programme/primary-care-guidance/

 

Booking patients in

Two vaccines are required to complete the course. The second is 21 days after the first.
All patients should be given appointments for both vaccinations at the time of booking.

The FIRST vaccination must be given Tuesday 15th – Thursday 17th December.
The SECOND vaccination must be given Tuesday 5th – Thursday 7th January 2021. These appointment slots are exclusively for the second dose ONLY.

Patients should have consented to receiving the vaccination at the time of booking. It is understood that written consent is not required but consent should be documented in the patient notes.

Once further vaccine supply schedules are known, further appointments will become available.

We understand that there is a national process underway regarding software to support the call/recall and booking process – this is not yet available.

The booking process

  • This is via EMIS cross-organisational booking, which is the same process as I:HUB

  • This will be updated once the appointments are on the system.

Patients will need to be able to travel to the site selected. There is limited street parking but no car park.

 

What to expect

The current site is Bingfield Medical Centre. A second site, Hanley Medical Centre, is currently on standby and waiting instruction from NHSE as to when this will go live.

The process will be updated here shortly.

Practices will be notified of the vaccination given, through EMIS up to 24 hours later.

 

Training and education for staff

The Whittington is offering free training sessions via Zoom, and we understand it to be very helpful:
http://coronavirus.ncl.nhs.sitekit.net/downloads/Webinars-and-training/Covid%20Training%20Flyer-%20Dec%202020%20ImmsTr%20Final%20Version.pdf

E-learning about the vaccination and more specific information for those who will be vaccinators is available on the free E-LFH portal:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/covid-19-vaccination-programme

 

Info re: indemnity and insurance for staff:

Information is contained in this letter from NHSE here

Financial Flow

This will be as per the Collaboration Agreement document (not yet ready)

All Item Of Service fees will flow to the single nominated bank account initially and will be handled as per the Collaboration Agreement.

NOTE: for reference, see below the text of the “workforce” email sent to practices on 9/12/2020 by PCN CDs

Dear colleagues 
First of all thank you for your enthusiasm and faith throughout this process. 30 out of 32 Islington practices signed up to the ES which really does give us strength in numbers in this extraordinary experience. Whilst this will be a marathon, the current status is most definitely ‘sprint’ to get things ready to safely deliver vaccine initially from the Bingfield site from next week. Your engagement and support will be critical to the success of this. Hanley site does not yet have a delivery date, and there is a reasonable expectation that two sites may well be running simultaneously. 

We are in the process of preparing separate comms regarding the call/recall/booking/information/consenting processes which will be coming through to you shortly. 

The purpose of this email is around workforce.  

We are approaching this in two parts: the ‘sprint’ – i.e. what we need to get done right now, and the ‘marathon’ -the ongoing delivery of vaccines for the duration of the ES. 

In order to deliver 975 vaccines before expiry of the delivered vaccine, we calculate we will need 4 vaccinators working simultaneously actively vaccinating for 11 hours of the day. Appointments will be weighted away from the first day to allow for learning and inevitable technical clunkiness. Ideally we need a GP on site for these first wave vaccinating clinics to support and troubleshoot (and also vaccinate). 

There are limitations to the workforce: 

  • PGDs mean only certain groups can give vaccines without a GP needing to sign off each one (which excludes HCAs at this point) 

  • Short time frame means availability of eligible staff will be tricky 

  • Training needs to be complete by the end of this week, and there are specific training needs around delivery of this vaccine 

  • There is no specific additional financial resource to fund staff at this time 

  • If 2 sites are operating simultaneously, staff requirements will be high 

The only real solution we can see that will allow safe vaccinating next week at such a scale is to mobilise the PCN pharmacist workforce. This is because: 

  • Pharmacists can administer vaccine under the PGD 

  • They are already an at-scale resource for PCNs 

  • Many already have the skills to prepare and administer the vaccine 

  • Their time is generally more flexible within practices than other staff members such as nurses and therefore can minimise the impact on general practices 

  • Time was already set aside to deliver on SMRs – which will now be put on pause in this immediate time 

  • Leadership already exists to support this programme 

As your CDs we would like to authorise the pharmacists to be redeployed to support delivery of the vaccine at Bingfield next week 15th-18th December and for the corresponding clinics provisionally 5th-7th January.  

We will be bringing in the CCG medicines management team to support with vaccine handling and management and are also very keen to hear from any practices who have staff who may be able to support these initial clinics. We have just been informed that there may be some reimbursement for your own practice staff if redeployed into this service for the first week of clinics. 

Particularly: 

  • Administrative and reception staff 

  • Nurses 

  • GPs to support this delivery 

If you are able to support with the additional staff above and would like to be involved please contact lindsaydubock@nhs.net ideally before midday Thursday 10th December. 

The longer term workforce for this programme (the marathon) will need to involve workforce supply by practice based on list size – we’ll work this up and come back to you again soon. 

As it stands, the latest info is that we are not expecting any further deliveries of vaccine apart from on 14th December and 4th January. 

We will progress with the above plan with immediate effect – many thanks for your support with all of this.