N3 problems this morning

BT N3 have confirmed an issue with a switch this AM resulting in a number of Bureau sites experiencing connection issues. BT N3 are currently investigating the issue but we have checked with a number of sites who confirm they are able to connect as usual.

Further information is available under incident ref 7713 here: http://nww.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/servicemanagement/status/incidents/2252/
 
If an practices are still experiencing connection issues to a Bureau based service, please contact helpline via the usual methods.

New Contract 2008-9 Guidelines

The new guidelines written to match the v12 business rules are now available to download from the INPS website.

The new guidelines to support the NGMS Contract 2008-9 are redesigned, with revised colours and updated to match the business rules v12. During the redesign we have appended a number of new management guidelines which will not only allow the practices to add the correct Read Codes needed to report to QMAS but will also assist in the day to management of patients with Chronic Disease within the QOF Domains.

We have also embedded some Macmillan Guidelines for the management of Cancer and Palliative Care patients.

We have tried to give a fresh new look to the guidelines and have changed the colours and added some additional guidelines where appropriate which will help with the overall management and administration of chronic diseases within the domains. The lines that relate specifically to QOF reports are marked with an asterisk to make it easier to identify them.

Once you’ve imported the new guidelines, you may wish to add them to your local guideline index; see here for instructions.

Icons not displaying in Guidelines

The recent upgrade to DLM 265 has had an unfortunate effect on any INPS or other logo present in Guidelines. A bitmap that shows what some of our older customers may recognise as looking like the man from the old VAMP logo will appear in place of the INPS logo stating “Illustration Not Available” This has no effect on the working of the guideline and is purely cosmetic. The development team are working to fix the problem and hope that this will be released in a forthcoming DLM.

New Docman Update Procdure

There is a new update procedure for practices running Docman on their own server.

Please see the document linked below for instructions on how to run updates.

new-docman-update-procedure.doc

October 2008 changes in Multilex Drug Dictionary

In the October 2008 Multilex Drug Dictionary, there are behind-the-scenes changes which may require you to reauthorise. The drugs involved are listed below.

Once the October dictionary is installed, when you come to issue any of these drugs from a repeat master, you may be asked to reauthorise before issuing. You will in all probability not then see any difference between the previous drug name and the reauthorised one but the change will have been made.

The following products will have their names restructured in Multilex DDF during September 2008 for inclusion in the October 2008 datacut. While the names may appear to be displayed identically, they may be presented for
re-authorising in repeat prescriptions.

Multilex DDF products with the following brand descriptors will be amended:

‘CR’, ‘LA’, ‘LS’, ‘M’, ‘MR’, ‘SR’, and ‘XL’

In a few cases, it will be necessary to suppress the existing record and create a new record. This latter group of products will use the ‘Replacement Record’ functionality within Multilex DDF. 

For a full list of affected products, please see the user guide.

nGMS Contract 2008-9

Although the GP contract for 2008-9 has been running since 1st April 2008 the GP system suppliers have only recently received the Business Rules which allow us to write the queries required to extract the correct data and send it to QMAS for reporting.

The Business Rules v12 are now receiving attention at INPS so that audits and guidelines to match them can be produced.
However the new reporting audits cannot be released until they have been conformed to the CfH standards and the message tested with the new QMAS database to ensure that we have correctly interpreted these rules.
Conformance testing will commence the week of 13th October and we hope to have completed during that week, however QMAS will not be ready to accept the new messages until between 20th and 27th October after which we be ready to start the roll out of the audits.

In the meantime we have written a small temporary audit:

nGMS Contract 2008-9 Temporary Audits

    Interim Audits for Changes to Business Rules v12

These interim audits have been produced in order to allow practices to check their progress to date with the changes to this year’s nGMS Contract before the conformed reporting audits can be released. They can be downloaded from the INPS website under Client Zone - Downloads - Audits.  The audits highlight the significant changes between v11 and v12.
http://www.inps.co.uk/downloads/clinaudit/clinaudit.htm

Choose & Book Problems

Update @ 16:00:

Atos believe service to be restored, however close system testing and monitoring continues.
Subject: NHS CFH Service Notification for Choose and Book users - New Severity 1 - Update 1

LOCATION: National

DESCRIPTION: Choose and Book users are currently unable to make bookings or search demographic information using the system.

IMPACT: Users are unable to perform demographic searches and make bookings in the system.

CURRENT ACTION BEING TAKEN: Atos and BT are investigating.

NEXT UPDATE: 03/10/2008 11:00

National Vision User Group 24th National Conference

The NVUG annual conference will be taking place in Stratford-upon-Avon on the 13th and 14th November.

 See here for details of the event.