Local Doctor Cover - Weekends and Bank Holidays

There is an interesting article in the Target this week regarding GPs providing cover for patients over Bank Holidays. This article has been published in response to a letter received by the paper from the Skegness Hospital Watch group (SHW). The basic issue is that local GP surgeries should provide this service.

The problem with the ideas expressed by the group is that they seem not to understand that GP practices do not have the responsibility to provide this cover, nor the resources to do so.

The responsibility to do so was moved from GP practices to local Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) when a new national GP contract was introduced by the last government in 2004. The requirement for GPs not to provide the Out Of Hours Service was central to the acceptance of this contract. Along with the responsibility went the funding to provide the cover. GP surgeries have to pay a portion of the income received from the NHS to the PCTs to allow or to assist them in funding the services.

Our local PCT provides a telephone service, a special non-emergency number 111 to get advice and an on-call GP service for those calls deemed to require the attendance of a GP to a patients home. In addition there are specially trained Para-Medics that are also available to respond. So in actual fact there is cover for all non-emergency medical problems. Emergencies are covered through the normal 999 service which operates on a 24 hour, 365 day a year service.

SHW call upon GP Practice Managers to provide GP cover over the two Bank Holiday weekends in April, but how is that to be paid for? Where is the money going to come from for, not only paying GPs to be there but also the Administration staff necessary to allow this cover to be provided. If they are requiring a full GP practice service then those costs escalate in line with the services provided.

Sorry folks but if you are not happy with the cover being provided then the PCT are the people that should be contacted and the demands for more cover, or cover provided in a different way,  should be made to them. They have the responsibility and the funding to provide the cover. How they do that is really up to them and not up to the local GPs or their Practice Managers.

Some useful telephone numbers:

GP Out Of Hours Service - 0845 0450281 (Evenings, weekends and Bank Holidays)
Non-emergency advice line - 111
Emergency Number - 999
Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust - 01522 513355