This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Seven-day GP scheme leaves out-of-hours struggling
The official evaluation of the seven-day GP access pilots revealed that they were ‘competing’ with out-of-hours providers for GPs, leading to incentives that were ‘unsustainable’ in the longer term.
John Harrison, of the Northern Doctors Urgent Care (NDUC) group claimed that this has caused ‘mayhem’ for out-of-hours providers. Harrison told GP publication Pulse that out-of-hours organisations had always had to carefully manage local GP workforce as only a limited number want to work out of core hours, but they could not compete with Challenge Fund schemes offering ‘£100 an hour plus’ for shifts.
Speaking at the Urgent Health UK annual conference, he said: “In Teeside, the local doctors won a Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund bid. They couldn’t get enough [GPs] for themselves to cover their rotas, so what do they do? They put it out at double the out-of-hours rate, £100 an hour plus, where the rest of us are dealing with about £47 to £50 an hour. We lost a quarter of our workforce in a matter of a couple of weeks.
“All of us manage our local workforce, there’s not a lot of GPs who want to work in out of hours, then a scheme like this comes barrelling in and causes absolute mayhem.”
Latest News
16/02/2024 - 12:56
Hammersmith and Fulham Council has created a new alliance intended to clean dirty air and improve residents' health.
16/02/2024 - 10:44
Two million more GP appointments a month are being delivered for patients compared to the same month before the pandemic as part of the NHS primary care access recovery plan according to new NHS data.
15/02/2024 - 10:26
The Welsh Government has provided innovation funding of £380,000 to support two projects utilising technology in domiciliary care.
15/02/2024 - 10:13
The new Scottish health secretary has met with frontline staff at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.
14/02/2024 - 10:27
The North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) has appointed three new Executive Directors to the Trust Board.
Product Features
UK Building Regulations highlight toxic gas and smoke from layers of paint built up over multiple redecorations as a major cause of permanent ill health or death in a building fire.
Their concern rose with discovery the flame retardant paints most widely used paint along escape routes have been ones which to this day counter-productively use emission of heavy toxic gas to smother flames which rapidly spread along walls if layers of paint delaminate in a fire.
Supplier Profiles
Northwich’s Victoria Infirmary (VIN) Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) has enabled more patients
Adveco, the commercial hot water specialist, announces the launch of live metering of domestic ho
Latest Features
Sarah Greenslade, public affairs and communications officer at the British Parking Association looks at some of the problems and innovations in healthcare parking
It’s easy to assume that the comms team is there to handle press enquiries and the occasional social media storm – but the reality is that strategic communications can make a measurable impact across the entire organisation, from operational to financial, when done properly
