Dr Dan Weaver, Chair, Havering GP Federation will update the Sub-Committee on out of hours and weekend GP provision in Havering.
Minutes:
The Chair of the Havering GP Federation reported that there was direct access available for patients to hub appointments. This was via a new phone number – 020 3770 1888. Access was also still available via the NHS 111 service.
There were now two GP hubs available in Havering – at the North Street Medical Centre and at the Rosewood Medical Centre in Abbs Cross Lane. The new service had received a lot of publicity support with Practice posters being produced and Practices being asked to mention the hub appointments on their answerphone messages. Members suggested that libraries, community centres and Facebook could be also used to advertise the service. The GP Federation Chair agreed that more advertising was required. Living Magazine and the Council e-mail database could also potentially be used.
In September 2014, around 300 out of hours appointments per month had been provided. By May 2015, with the opening of the second hub, this had risen to approximately 5,000 appointments per month. Some 42% of people who used the service had indicated they would otherwise have gone to A&E so this had produced a financial saving for the local healthcare economy. The hub services had received good feedback for areas such as access and quality of staff. There was no peak time for the service as all patients were booked by appointment. There had been a lot of compliments received that people were able to obtain weekend GP appointments very quickly via the service.
Some 90% of weekday hub appointments in Havering had been used but this dropped to 41% at weekends. The weekend figures were in line with experience in other areas where demand for weekend appointments had been lower than anticipated. The originally planned 8 am – 8 pm weekend service was not therefore needed and appointments were available 12-5 pm on Saturdays and 12-4 pm on Sundays. It was clarified that there were no plans to close the weekend GP service in Havering.
The GP Federation, known as Havering Health, represented 38 of the 47 GP practices in Havering. As regards sharing of medical records, any IT issues had been resolved but data sharing protocols still needed to be agreed. This was a local issue that needed to be resolved between the commissioners and providers involved.
The Director of Healthwatch Havering reported that around half of Havering GP surgeries did not display a recent Healthwatch survey on GP access and only very poor responses had been received from most other practices. Responses that were received however had been very supportive of the hub and of the sharing of patient records. Many GP receptionists still did not appear to be aware of the hub and its out of hours services. The Federation Chairman expressed disappointment t this and would report this back to a practice managers’ meeting.
The GP Federation wished to run the full triage service at Queen’s A&E but this was not however consistent and the Federation only currently undertook the full triage service at certain times. The Federation Chair was keen to avoid instances of people being sent between A & E and the Urgent Care Centre and wished to see these services joined up in due course.
The GP Federations for Havering, Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge met every two weeks and joined together for some projects such as the triage service at Queen’s A & E. The Urgent Care Centre at Queen’s was open 8 am to midnight but worked at different capacities at different times. It was confirmed that patients who arrived during the last part of the evening could not usually be seen in the Urgent Care Centre. It was accepted that there was sometimes a lack of communication between A & E and the Urgent Care Centre and the GP Federation wished to negotiate with BHRUT to gain control of the full triage and reception functions at A & E. It was clarified that the Urgent Care Centre itself was operated by the Partnership of East London Cooperatives.
The Federation Chair agreed to amend the advertising poster for the hub out of hours service and send this to the Sub-Committee. This would use phrases such as ‘central number, local service’ and emphasise the times when the call centre was open. The Acting Director of Public Health would discuss with the Council’s communications team about getting this information out.
The Sub-Committee NOTED the update.