As some of you may already be aware, the Arms Legislation Act 2020 introduced changes to the Arms Act 1983 which will come into effect from 24 December 2020. The changes are intended to reduce harm from firearms and there is one change that our sector needs to be aware of.

If your practice took part in the patient experience survey you should be starting to receive some responses. Further instructions from IPOS will be sent out towards the end of the month to assist in accessing the patient responses.

The GP Liaison team are working with Waikato DHB mental health services to improve GP communication and patient services. They have created a survey on primary-secondary mental health and addiction service for GPs to complete as an opportunity to make some suggestions on the services

Here is the latest update for Tairāwhiti DHB GP liaison Anna Meuli covering pink zone hours, medication safety in transfer of care, obstetric summaries/hypertension in pregnancy postpartum monitoring and bowel screening.

Rural GPEP1 trainees are placed by the college by December each year and can apply for the VBS when they start work in February.

Please note due to the COVID-19 pandemic there are problems in securing reagents for molecular/PCR based testing of enteric pathogens. This is due to the manufacturers of the test reagents diverting resource to the production of SARS-CoV-2 assays.

Youth aged 15 to 30 are the focus of a new measles immunisation campaign which encourages young people to get protected from the serious and extremely infectious disease.

Midlands Region Community Health Pathways is moving to a mobile friendly version (PDF), with a soft launch on 22 October 2020 and the full launch in mid-November.

#MedSafetyWeek is a social media campaign promoted by Medsafe that raises awareness of adverse drug reactions and encourages the reporting of side effects to medications.