Website of the Department of Health

GPs recognised in New Year Honours

GPs have been recognised for their contribution to medicine in the New Year's Honours.

Dr Maureen Baker, honorary secretary of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and director of primary care at the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) was awarded a CBE.

Dr Peter Smith, chairman of the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC), has received an OBE.

Dr Agnelo Teles Fernandes, medical director of NHS Direct South London and a Croydon GP was awarded an MBE.

Essex GP Dr Ian Gibson and Dr Rosemary Anne Leonard, a broadcaster and GP in South London received MBEs.

Tackling complaints and suspensions

Complaints against GPs will be examined more closely under new draft regulations.

The Department of Health wants to provide a more responsive service by improving the way it listens to complaints about the service. It includes processes to raise complaints informally and immediately with any member of staff, only dealing with them more formally if the complainant wishes.

The Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection will provide independent reviews of complaints where the complainant is unhappy with the local NHS response and patients will have a choice of routes to complain about primary care services.

Doctors will also face fewer unjustified suspensions under new guidance - Maintaining High Professional Standards in the Modern NHS: a framework for the initial handling of concerns about doctors and dentists in the NHS. This details how to launch quick and efficient investigations when concerns are raised about a doctor or dentist and how to decide whether to restrict their practice and contact with the public.

More information at:

• NHS complaints procedure

GPs with a special interest in musculoskeletal conditions

A framework for a GPs with a Special Interest (GPwSI) service in musculoskeletal conditions is now available.

The Royal College of General Practitioners has produced the guidance following extensive consultation with GPs, secondary care specialists, primary care trust managers, patients, the Department of Health and the National Primary and Care Trust Development Programme.

It has been written in close consultation with the British Orthopaedic Association and the British Society for Rheumatology. The framework draws on national good practice and experience to help develop local services.

GPwSIs in musculoskeletal conditions assess the individual patient and can offer advice on or provide pain management, conduct minor surgery and refer patients to secondary care and carry out pre-operative assessment. Providing such services in community settings prevents patients from having to be referred to hospital. So it is more convenient for them and can help to free up secondary care resources from more complex work.

The framework should be read in conjunction with Implementing a scheme for General Practitioners with Special Interests and with Practitioners with Special Interests: A Step by Step Guide To Setting Up a General Practitioner with a Special Interest (GPwSI) Service on the Modernisation Agency/NatPaCT website.

• Guidelines for GPs with special interests : musculoskeletal conditions
• Practitioners with special interests
• Modernisation Agency/NatPaCT site for practitioners with special interests (opens new window)

Conflict management training for GPs

All GPs are to be trained in conflict resolution as part of the Government's drive to reduce the potential for violence against NHS staff.

They are among 730,000 frontline staff members who will take the one-day course, developed by the NHS Counter Fraud and Security Management Service. It will show ways of diffusing potentially hazardous situations.

British Medical Association's Dr John Chisholm backed the scheme, saying: "The more assaults we see against GPs, the harder it will be for the NHS to recruit more GPs and retain their services."

More information at:

• Counter Fraud and Security Management Service (CFSMS) (opens new window)

Screening roll-out to improve sexual health

New chlamydia screening programmes are set to cut the number of sexually-transmitted diseases in the country.

An extra £4 million, covering 50 PCTs, is being invested to roll-out the programme. It will mean that a quarter of all PCTs will be providing screening to at-risk groups.

A review of how genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinics are modernising will also take place.

The chlamydia screening programme will primarily target women under 25 who access sexual health services but a greater uptake of testing among men will also be promoted.

Since 2002, £35 million has been invested in GUM clinics to help them modernise and reduce waiting times.

More information at:

Out-of-hours appeals

Out-of-hours appeals - appeals by GPs against PCT decisions to refuse or withdraw permission for them to transfer their out-of-hours responsibilities to accredited providers or other GPs - will in future be decided by the Family Health Services Appeal Authority (special health authority) rather than the Secretary of State, as a result of statutory directions issued on 21 January 2004 available at:

• Out-of-Hours

Appeals should be addressed to the FHSAA (SHA) at 30 Victoria Avenue, Harrogate, HG1 5PR.

Flu consultation

A flu-busting drug is set to become widely available under proposals by the Department of Health.

The department is now consulting on whether to make Oseltamivir, better known by the brand name 'Tamiflu', available for private prescription. Oseltamivir is used to prevent and treat influenza.

Current National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidance, issued earlier this year, makes the drug available to at-risk groups such as older people and those with severe asthma and respiratory problems.

Consideration is being given to making the drug available to all patients via their GP if they consider it is the right treatment for them.

More information at:

• Full Guidance on the the use of zanamivir, oseltamivir and amantadine for the treatment of influenza (opens new window)

The consultation document is at:

• Consultation on policy proposal relating to the use of Tamiflu for the treatment and post-exposure prophylaxis of Influenza or Influenza like illness (ILI)

Mobile cataract treatment

An extra 41,000 cataract operations are to be performed in two new independently-run mobile treatment centres.

The Department of Health has signed a deal with Netcare to run the centres, which will initially treat patients in those areas with the highest waiting times.

More than 13,000 people are scheduled for treatment in the first year of the five-year contract.

The department has also named Anglo-Canadian Clinics and Nations Healthcare as its preferred bidders to run two new treatment centres in Southend and Nottingham respectively for orthopaedic and general surgery.

More information at:

• Treatment centres

Care records contract

A 10-year contract worth £620 million to set up and run the national NHS Care Records Service, which will provide every patient in England with an individual electronic NHS Care Record, has been awarded to BT.

The NHS Care Records Service will provide all 50 million NHS patients with an electronic record which will detail key treatments and care within either the health service or social care and will connect GPs and NHS trusts in a single, secure national system.

BT has also been awarded a contract worth £996m to provide systems to access and use the service and IT support at a local level in the London region. Accenture has a £1099m contract to be the Local Service Provider in the North East region and a £934m contract for the Eastern region. The £934m North West and West Midlands region contract has gone to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC).

More information at:

• NHS CRS briefing

Healthy tips for a healthy life

GP practices, newsagents and even nail salons are among the places where the public can pick up a new consumer health magazine featuring celebrity health tips.

Your Life! targets young women and combines local NHS information and health advice with human interest stories and celebrity features.

The free magazine been produced by the Department of Health and independent health care organisation Dr Foster. More than 70 primary care trusts will help produce 62 regional editions, with a pull-out focusing on local health issues and providing vital contact information.

More information at:

• Dr Foster (opens new window)

NHSU strategic plan launched

A programme to ensure doctors develop skills and knowledge required for performance in practice, early in post-registration, is being developed as one of the early courses offered by the NHSU.

The corporate university for the NHS, which became a special health authority in December, aims to improve patient care by developing a culture of lifelong learning for health and social care staff working in the NHS. The courses are designed to blend into the everyday working environment and will be supported by local study centres.

Early schemes outlined in NHSU's draft strategic plan for 2004-2008 include Working for the NHS, an induction programme designed for everyone who joins the NHS.

Better primary care access

Patients will have better access to primary care services and more choice when 11 new NHS walk-in centres are set up across the country.

These centres are being funded from a three-year investment announced last July, bringing the total number in England to 65. An extra £10 million is being made available to support further centres to focus on commuters. This will bring the total new central investment to £50 million.

The centres offer quick and convenient access to health care, no appointment is needed and they are open seven days a week early until late. Some include GP services and can contribute towards improving access to GPs as well as nurses, freeing up general practice to deal with more complex or chronic cases.

The new centres will be in: Brighton, Lewisham, Darlington, Barking and Dagenham, Skelmersdale, Colchester, Huntingdon, Prestwich, Salford, Gateshead and Sunderland.

More information on NHS walk-in centres is at:

• NHS UK Gateway for local services (opens new window)

Scrutiny forums launched

The formal launch of 574 independent patient and public involvement forums got underway in December.

The forums, one attached to every NHS trust, have been created to provide local individuals and groups with the means to influence health priorities and the structure of services. Over 4,000 people have already been accepted as voluntary members of the forums and recruitment is continuing to fill many vacancies.

The forums are supported by the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH).

More information at:

• Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH) (opens new window)

Hypertension guide for GPs wins recognition

A Cambridgeshire doctor has won a national award for his work in developing a GP guide for identifying and treating hypertension.

Addenbrooke's NHS Trust clinical pharmacology unit head Professor Morris Brown and his team won the Hospital Doctor award for cardiovascular medicine, while he won the overall award for his work in treating hypertension.

Professor Brown devised the AB/CD rule which GPs use as a guide to identifying hypertension and getting a patient's blood pressure under control in just a few steps.

Receiving the awards from chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, Professor Brown said: "It's good if this award helps hypertension to be taken more seriously and doctors to realise that most patients can be entirely protected through rational treatment, or cured of hypertension."

British National Formulary - distribution