Conflict over plans to improve out-of-hours services
pharmafile | August 15, 2007 | News story | |Â Â Â
Doctors have attacked government plans to allow more non-medically qualified staff to run out-of-hours services.
The row follows a recent report from an all-party committee of MPs which condemned out-of-hours care as "shambolic", claiming the existing system fails patients.
The current confusion and lack of continuity in care has arisen from the new GP contract introduced in 2004, which has allowed doctors to opt out of providing night services.
But new plans by the government to plug the gap with non-medically trained staff have been criticised by the BMA.
Dr Peter Holden of the BMAs GPs Committee said: "Although many GPs are no longer responsible for out-of-hours care, up to half are still putting in shifts at evenings and weekends.
"However, despite the availability of GPs, it's becoming increasingly common for PCTs to design out-of-hours services around non-medically qualified staff. On some occasions this is inappropriate, especially when it's done purely to save money."
The BMA says the government consultation on how to update the system is "fundamentally flawed" because it fails to look at urgent care in the context of wider NHS reforms. It says that services need to be more clearly integrated, and that patients need better information about how to access them out of hours. The organisation stressed the importance of GPs as co-ordinators of urgent care and said it was concerned at their lack of involvement in some areas.
The report from the Public Accounts Committee says nine million patients receive out-of-hours care in England every year, but found the percentage of providers who met targets on answering calls or making visits was "extremely low".
Only 2% of calls were answered within a minute and only 15% of services provided "urgent face-to-face consultations at home" within two hours.
