Issue - meetings

Report and details of consultation attached.

With the agreement of the Chairman, a member of the public briefly addressed the Committee. The member of the public wished to raise what she considered the poor state of local health services, particularly in the Ilford South area. This area had the worst GP ratio of the three boroughs with, the member of the public contended, local residents waiting up to 11 weeks for a GP appointment.

It was felt that the urgent care consultation ignored this very serious situation. and that the local CCGs did not know what was happening in the locality. Loxford polyclinic was not functioning as a walk-in centre and a lot of diagnostic equipment had been removed from the site.

In the view of the member of the public, there was not a GP hub at Loxford Polyclinic and appointments there could not be booked via NHS 111. Appointments could only be booed at the site and poor signage meant people did not know about the clinics available. It was felt that it should be noted that the Loxford area was the most deprived in Redbridge with many people for whom English was a second language and for whom it was therefore difficult to telephone for an appointment.

The member of the public felt that Loxford Polyclinic should be made an Urgent Treatment Centre in order to reduce the numbers of people attending A & E at King George Hospital.

Officers representing the Commissioning Support Unit confirmed that the public consultation period would close at 5 pm on 21 August 2018. Urgent care – care needed the same day for illness, cuts or minor injuries, was mainly delivered by GPs though also by community pharmacists. It was felt that there was a case for change in rationalising the way in which urgent care was delivered, particularly in the evenings or at weekends.

GP access hubs currently delivered urgent care at evenings and weekends via a separate telephone number from NHS 111. One third of these patients could be given advice by phone rather than needing to see a GP face to face and this was the same for walk-in centres. There were currently seven local GP hubs covering Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge and four walk-in centres.

It was felt that the best person to see for urgent care was a GP although officers accepted that it could be challenging to access GP services. GP services themselves were not being consulted upon. Officers felt that change was needed for a variety of reasons including public confusion over where best to go for treatment, national guidance on the need to improve facilities and the need to upgrade urgent care centres to urgent treatment centres, allowing x-rays, blood tests, diagnostics etc.

Officers felt that the NHS 111 service had improved over recent years the new service provider starting on 1 August would increase to 50% the proportion of callers able to speak to a clinician. It was proposed that both options would allow a single phone number  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5