OCCG Weekly Bulletin
Wednesday 18 January 2017
Included in this bulletin:
- Oxfordshire’s Healthand Care Services Big Consultation
- IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING IT SECURITY
- SCaN Pathway – CRUK ACEWave 11 Suspected Cancer Project
- Information Governance Support of GP Practices
- Email Advice Service Survey 2017
Information for Practices
Oxfordshire’s Health and Care Services Big Consultation:
On 16 January 2017 the NHS in Oxfordshire launched Phase 1 of the'Big Health and Care Consultation’to ask patients and the public what they think about possible changes to some healthcare services in the county.
The ‘Big Health and Care Conversation’ was an opportunity for doctors, nurses and other NHS leaders to discuss with the public, volunteers, charities and patient representatives how to improve health care and tackle the challenges the NHS is facing as demand grows and budgets are limited.
The consultation, which runs from Monday 16 January 2017 until 9 April 2017, will cover acute hospital services (acute hospitals provide a wide range of specialist care and treatment including surgery, medical care, emergency care and tests), specifically:
• changing the way we use our hospital beds and increasing care closer to home in Oxfordshire
• planned care at the Horton General in Banbury (planned care includes tests and treatment planned in advance and not urgent or emergency care)
• acute stroke services in Oxfordshire
•critical care at the Horton General (critical care helps people with life-threatening or very serious injuries and illnesses)
• maternity services including obstetrics, Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) and emergency gynaecology surgery in North Oxfordshire.
This work is also part of an over-arching five year plan (called a Sustainability and Transformation Plan or STP) across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (referred to as the BOB STP) which sets out how the NHS plans to bring about the changes we all need to make.
The consultation is now live on Talking Health and on the Oxfordshire Transformation websites - links below:
- Talking Health
- Oxfordshire Transformation website:
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING IT SECURITY:
Please advise all staff to use caution when opening attachments or clicking on links in emails. There has been an increase in volume and attacks are becoming more sophisticated. In particular we have seen an increase in targeted phishing attacks, where the sender has some basic information about the practice.
This has included spoofing email addresses to make it look like emails come from other staff members. Please use extreme caution especially if there is any financial implication – we have also seen an increase in emails asking the receiver to pay funds into an account that appear to come from a member of staff.
South Central and West CSU, in conjunction with national teams, are working to identify and block attackers and increase our security but given the scale it is inevitable that some emails will slip through.
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SCaN Pathway – CRUK ACE Wave 11 Suspected Cancer Project:
Many of you will have had feedback already from your GP Commissioning Lead, about the fact that the SCaN Pathway is now ready to roll out.
This new pathway is designed to send patients who do not fit any other two week wait (2ww) pathway, direct to CT scan prior to an appointment in a multidisciplinary centre, for clinical review.
The aim is that by seeing these ‘low risk, not no risk’ patients in this way, cancers will be picked up sooner and assurance given to those who need it.
For more information please read the attached SCAN pathway, Dummy Data Collection Form and Information Sharing Protocol documents here.
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Information Governance Support for GP Practices:
Do you have an information governance query? Do you need advice on IG training, dealing with an IG incident or the IG Toolkit? The CSU IG team can provide guidance on data protection, confidentiality, information security, IG training for your staff or dealing with a data breach. We can also help you with completing the IG Toolkit or carry out a pre-submission check to help you publish.
For all practice related information governance enquiries please contact:
Lindsay Blamires, General Practice Information Governance Manager, NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit – or mobile – 07741 006028
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Email Advice Service Survey 2017:
Have you used an email advice service in the past year? Would you like to give feedback on how helpful/unhelpful it was?
If so, please take part in the brief survey at this link and help improve email advice for all GPs.Please see the attachment here for more information about the scope of the survey.
Many thanks
Dr Merlin Dunlop
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To give us your feedback please email: