Dear Colleagues,  

As you are aware the online national outbreak reporting portal goes live on Monday 14 December. All NHS Provider Trusts will need to upload directly all new outbreak information and updates to existing outbreaks using the e-Portal. 

To facilitate the transition to the new system a number of changes are required. 

The revised template attached replaces the existing IIMARCH with immediate effect. This mirrors the fields on the new e-Portal. Due to last minute changes to the  e-Portal it has not been feasible to get this to you any earlier than this afternoon. 

Secondly, from  Friday 11 December 2020, in order to manage the data migration the following changes are required: 

NHS Provider Trusts

• IIMARCH updates to existing reported outbreaks from NHS provider trusts should not be forwarded to the regional team but rather uploaded on 14 December once the e-Portal is live. 
• In exceptional cases where there is significant change since the last update impacting adversely on business continuity and service delivery, an email outlining the change, impact and mitigation should be forwarded via each ICS to england.london-covid19outbreaks@nhs.net 
• New outbreaks: To ensure the Regional team is made aware of any new outbreaks, between Friday 11 December to Sunday 13 December inclusive, NHS provider trusts should use the attached template (new outbreaks only) 

All Others (including: Primary care - GP/ Dentists and Independent Providers)

• Please continue to submit new outbreak notifications and updates using the new template attached.  

Please note: from tomorrow the old IIMARCH forms cannot be accepted and where applicable the new attached form should be used. 

Finally, I would once again ask you to remind all NHS provider trusts to ensure they can log on to the e-Portal. Should they experience any issues these need to be logged using the contact details forwarded to you in previous guidance sent out.