This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Evening and weekend GP appointments available
NHS England has announced that patients across England can now experience extended access to general practice appointments in the evening and weekends.
The announcement means that patients will be able to see a doctor, nurse or other member of the practice team at a time convenient to them, with NHS England predicting an estimated nine million extra appointments per year as a result of the weekend and evening service.
The service is being delivered three months ahead of schedule, as NHS England begins a communications campaign for the run up to Christmas to ensure patients are aware of the evening and weekend appointments.
Dominic Hardy, NHS England’s director of Primary Care Delivery, said: “Strengthening general practice is an important part of the NHS Long Term Plan and local health services have worked hard to ensure patients have access to our excellent general practice services right across the country. Because of this hard work, we have been able to make these extra appointments available months ahead of schedule and before winter really starts. As well as offering convenience and choice to patients, it will help to reduce some of the pressure on general practice and A&Es and ease some of the wider system pressures we saw last winter.”
Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “GPs across the country are going above and beyond to ensure we can deliver good, safe care for our patients under intense resource and workforce pressures. All practices in England now offer some form of extended access to routine GP services, and they will have tailored these to the needs of their local population.
“We are preparing for a very busy winter in general practice. Our patients should always be able to access GP services if they become ill, either through our routine service, or the GP out of hours service – but we would also encourage patients to think about whether they really need to see a GP, or whether self-care or visiting a pharmacist are options in the first instance.”
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