 |
Test, Trace, Protect - Digital Contact Tracing
The all-Wales digital contact tracing system is a key element of Wales' Test, Trace and Protect service and directly supports contact tracers.
If an individual has a positive COVID-19 test, the NHS Wales Test, Trace, Protect service will make contact by telephone. The individual will be asked where they have been recently and anyone they have had close contact with, what symptoms they had and the date symptoms started.
To streamline the process, the new digital contact tracing system, based on a
sophisticated Customer Relationship Management database, allows people who have had a positive test for COVID-19 to enter details of close contacts on a web-form.
The tracing service will then get in touch with close contacts and they will be asked to self-isolate for 14 days as a precaution to prevent the virus spreading further.
During self-isolation, daily monitoring of close contacts is managed through the contact tracing system. Depending on individual choice, monitoring can be via text message or a personal call from an advisor. Email and automated phone monitoring services will be introduced shortly to expand the monitoring options.
All information is fed back directly into the contact tracing system with alerts flagged for people who are not feeling well.
This essential new system is the result of a rapid development led by the NHS Wales Informatics Service, working collaboratively with Welsh Government, Public Health Wales, seven health boards and 22 local authorities.
Helen Thomas, Interim Director of the NHS Wales Informatics Service, said: "This was a phenomenal piece of work by all involved, achieved in very short timescales - 40 days from start to finish. W
e now have the technology base needed for a robust scalable national response to contact tracing."
How does contact tracing work?
Anyone with symptoms of the virus can apply for a home test kit or make an appointment at a drive-through test centre, either by calling 119 or asking for a test online from
https://gov.wales/apply-coronavirus-test.
|
New digital service supports local pharmacy prescribing
From June 2020, a new module of the Choose Pharmacy application, the Independent Prescribers' Service (IPS), will support community pharmacists who have qualified as non-medical prescribers to provide patients presenting with certain conditions access to effective advice and treatment.
It's part of the expanding Choose Pharmacy digital platform, developed by the NHS Wales Informatics Service, which includes services such as emergency contraception, common ailments service and discharge medicine reviews.
Providing this service, via the digital Choose Pharmacy service, will enable pharmacists to record the consultation, generate a GP summary and/or referral letters and create a patient history, which moves with the patient if they change pharmacies. To inform decisions, pharmacists who have qualified as non-medical prescribers will have access to the patient's digital Welsh GP Record. This includes a summary of important information, such as current medication, recent tests and allergies.
The service is intended to provide timely access to advice for patients and reduce demand on GP consultations relating to relevant and defined conditions. Community pharmacies are one of the key frontline providers people can go to if they need urgent care, reducing pressure on GPs and A&E departments.
Emma Williams, Choose Pharmacy Clinical Lead, NHS Wales Informatics Service, said: "The Independent Prescribers' Service supports a 'community pharmacy first' model of care. This means patients will have more access to advice and treatment at the right time, in the right place, reducing pressure on GPs for consultations for conditions that can be appropriately managed in the community pharmacy setting. This is particularly relevant during the current healthcare crisis, when ensuring greater access and options for patient care is more important than ever."
Following the Minister for Health and Social Services' recent announcement on a range of measures to improve access to digital tools for Community Pharmacies in Wales, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Wales, Andrew Evans commented on the new module,
"The release of this module is a significant step towards our ambition to enable many more pharmacists in community pharmacies in all parts of Wales to provide clinical services in a way that best utilises their expertise and is truly integrated with the rest of primary care."
NWIS will go on to conduct a pathfinder evaluation towards the end of this year, which will inform recommendations on national rollout.
|
GPs can view Welsh Clinical Portal
GPs across Wales have been given access to the Welsh Clinical Portal, so they can see important information from every hospital in Wales.
They can view discharge summaries, graphable test results, clinic letters, the GP summary record, and many other features. It is particularly useful for providing information about new patients at a practice, where a full GP record may not be available, and where patients are not registered at a practice.
As well as being able to browse the features of the Welsh Clinical Portal, a GP can record a 'flag' into a patient's record to indicate where an Advanced Care Plan discussion has taken place. This is useful as it can serve as a prompt for a hospital clinician to have a conversation with a patient or carer about the plan.
Microsoft Teams helps GPs stay connected while socially distancing
Features of Microsoft Teams have been enabled for all GP practices. Chat, calendar and calls are available to all, following the completion of a pilot project with a small number of GPs and cluster sites.
One of the GPs in the pilot has found it an incredibly useful tool, especially for cluster work.
"We can easily message and call each other" said Dr Simon Braybrook, who works at Butetown Medical Practice in Cardiff.
The inner-city practice has around 10,000 patients and is part of the City & South cluster. Dr Braybrook has also used the Teams features with colleagues at his practice, and found it useful for socially distancing. He said, "if somebody in another room wants me to look at something , like a rash, they can use Teams. They can just click on a call for me, I can answer it, we can both use our webcams to connect."
Further work is underway to pilot more features of Teams - such as the collaboration functions - and will be made available to all practices soon.
|
|
| Benefits of Microsoft Teams for GPs: Interview with Dr Simon Braybrook |
|
|
Q&A with WIDI apprentice, Ethan Needham
Our Wales Institute of Digital Information (WIDI) apprentices have played a crucial role in supporting the work of NWIS during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We managed to catch up with Ethan Needham who started as an apprentice at NWIS towards the end of 2019. He told us about his involvement in the crucial work of enabling staff remote access to the NHS network safely and securely, and the extra confidence he has gained in himself as a result.
|
|
|
|
|
|
