27 November 2020

Member update – Friday’s roundup 27 November

In this week’s roundup of sector news

• Covid-19 update
• FODO reduces membership fees 
• Health policy updates
• Other sector news

Covid-19 update

Recent announcements on new lockdown restrictions do not directly affect primary eye care anywhere in the UK. Members might, however, still find the following tools useful to track local Covid risk levels:

• England – postcode checker for the Covid risk level in your area
• Northern Ireland – FAQs on Covid-19 restrictions 27 November to 11 December
• Scotland – postcode checker for the Covid risk level in your area
• Wales – Coronavirus regulations FAQs

The Directorate of Primary Care in Scotland has today published a new Covid-19 related PCA which sets out:

• Revised financial support for practices. Data shows that practices are now at 90% activity levels compared to the same period last year (based on October data). The Scottish Government acknowledges there will be variation in activity across practices but that after 1 December practices will have to qualify for GOS support by meeting minimum activity thresholds.
• During the festive period, primary eye care providers must ensure that they are accessible and remain the ‘first port of call’ during normal practice opening hours, except for designated public holidays.

Read PCA(O)2020(19) for more details of the financial activity thresholds to qualify for support.

FODO reduces membership fees

To help members through these challenging times, FODO has reduced its 2021 membership subscription by £20 from £161 per FTE to £141 per FTE.

Individual members who work fewer than 130 days per year (about five sessions per week on average) can now also take advantage of a part-time subscription rate at £70.50.

We have introduced reduced membership fees to help offset the increase in insurance premiums as the medical malpractice insurance market has continued to harden this year.

Alan Tinger, Director of Regulatory Affairs, said: “Medical malpractice insurance premiums are increasing across the board. We know this is a challenging time for members and wanted to do everything we could to help. This year we rigorously cut costs and put all non-urgent work on hold to reduce subscription rates for members in 2021. As we announced in September, we are also working with ABDO and the FMO to sell our joint London headquarters. With this in progress, we will build on new ways of working during 2021 to stabilise our future costs at low levels.”

Find out more about the benefits of FODO member and join us.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected] or call us on 020 7298 5151.

Health policy updates

The FODO team is currently analysing new health policy publications on your behalf to assess the risks and opportunities for primary eye care across the UK. This week we want to let you know about some key publications. 

Regulatory reform – UK

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has published its plans on reducing bureaucracy in the health and social care system. Although the plans focus on England, including major reforms to the procurement regime (see below), it also addresses the issue of UK-wide professional regulation.

DHSC confirms that it will launch a public consultation on detailed proposals to reform the UK’s health professional regulation framework in early 2021. The priorities include:

• Making improvements in fitness to practise
• Introducing more flexibility to allow regulators to respond to changes in healthcare
• Improving collaboration between regulators
• Regulating Physician Associates and Anaesthesia Associates
• Reviewing the number of regulators in the UK. Currently, there are nine regulators, including the GOC. The DHSC has said it wants “to work with the public, the professions and the regulators to understand how we could simplify the regulatory landscape”.

Read more on page 19 of the report.

FODO will be working with all members and the wider sector to respond to the consultation in 2021. We will keep you up to date with this work in our member updates.

Hospital waiting lists to be a top priority in Northern Ireland

This week, Health Minister Robin Swann has stressed that hospital waiting lists must be an Executive priority in 2021. His statement followed the latest waiting time statistics, which show increasing pressure that is likely to worsen further due to Covid-19 pressures. He also acknowledged that Trusts have been using local independent sector capacity to help reduce pressure in hospitals. Read more.

Members will be aware of this across the UK as ophthalmology departments also struggle to meet local needs due to Covid-19 related capacity challenges. If you have any examples of innovative and collaborative models of care that are helping reduce the risk of avoidable sight loss due to delays in care, please get in touch to share best practice with us at [email protected].

NHS commissioning reforms planned in England

The NHS is consulting on reforms to the commissioning system in England. The consultation document published yesterday explores how Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) can be “embedded in legislation or guidance”. The consultation covers a wide range of concepts, including using primary care leadership “spanning general practice, community and mental health care, social care, pharmacy, dentistry, optometry and the voluntary sector” to help drive changes.

The main aim of the legislative change proposals, however, is to abolish regulatory oversight and functions around enforcing competition in the NHS. This includes recommending that “regulations made under section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 should be revoked and that the powers in primary legislation under which they are made should be repealed, and that NHS services be removed from the scope of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015”. Although this has been set out before, the NHS now proposes two options for reforms:

• Option 1: a statutory committee model with an Accountable Officer that binds together current statutory organisations.
• Option 2: a statutory corporate NHS body model that additionally brings CCG statutory functions into the ICS.

This comes in the same week DHSC set out its plans to “limit excess bureaucracy” in the NHS by legislating to “make procurement more flexible”. DHSC states it plans to replace existing regulations with “a new procurement regime, alongside numerous changes to the roles of competition and the national tariff within the NHS”.

The NHS consultation closes on 8 January 2021.

The NHS is also consulting on proposals for the 2021/22 national tariff and inviting stakeholders to respond to an online survey with their views on the proposals. The survey closes 10 December.

FODO will be analysing these consultations in more detail and will respond on behalf of members and the patients we all serve. If you would like to take part in any of this work, please email [email protected].

Other sector news

LaingBuisson reported this week that H2 Equity Partners (H2) has agreed to acquire pan-European ophthalmology group Optegra. 

This week, the GOC published more details on the process for EEA and Swiss optometrists and dispensing opticians who wish to join the GOC register from 1 January 2021 after the UK leaves the EU. Learn more.

The GOC also announced it would be contributing to UK-REACH, a study into ethnicity and Covid-19 outcomes in healthcare workers. Read more.

The Royal College of Ophthalmologists has announced new committee appointments (read more) and a new ophthalmic practitioner training (OPT) webinars (learn more).