General practice adult hearing AQP audiology update: The adult hearing AQP audiology providers continue to accept referrals from GP practices and are seeing patients during the second wave of Covid19.
Providers are adhering to the Government COVID-19 guidelines in relation to patient contact e.g. wearing PPE when seeing patients, regularly sanitising premises between patients, which will continue to help keep patients and provider staff safe. Providers may, however, introduce additional telephone calls prior to an actual appointment to ask patients some basic COVID health questions.
It has also come to light that one particular provider has sent out their own communications and referral template in breach of the provider’s contract terms. This issue is in the process of being resolved. As this may cause or have caused, some confusion in primary care, it was considered useful to clarify the position with primary care colleagues:
- Patients requiring an NHS community adult hearing AQP audiology appointment will need to be referred by their GP using e-RS. Self-referral is NOT part of the current adult hearing AQP audiology service.
- Practices are requested to continue to use the specific referral criteria and referral forms available on their clinical systems.
Please contact your audiology borough lead if you have any questions or concerns. Contact details in the table below.
As we move towards more collaborative working across the SEL boroughs, in the event of the Southwark borough lead not being available, you can contact one of the other borough leads as noted in the SEL CCG Update (4th December 2020).