Press release: NHS Confederation Voices Concern Over Primary Care Out-of-Hours Announcement

16 Sep 2004

The NHS Confederation today voiced its concerns over Health Secretary John Reid's statement on out-of-hours services.

Nigel Edwards, Director of Policy at the NHS Confederation, said: "We have real concerns about John Reid's announcement in the House of Commons on Monday about a commitment to face-to-face consultation with a GP out-of-hours. The intention of the new GMS contract was to encourage PCTs to develop innovative out-of-hours services that still deliver high-quality patient care. Specifying that PCTs should provide Saturday morning surgery is a degree of detail too far - this type of detailed guidance should be unnecessary and could be unhelpful."

Nigel added: "This will add to the cost of many out-of-hours services which are already putting significant financial pressures on PCTs, without necessarily improving the quality of the service. Even those PCTs which can afford to hire a GP to be on-call may struggle to find doctors willing to work these shifts."

Nigel concluded: "We are in discussions with officials at the Department of Health about how to produce guidance that allows PCTs to develop local out-of-hours services using the most appropriate skill-mix."

ENDS

Notes for editors

1. The NHS Confederation negotiated the new GMS contract with the General Practitioners' Committee on behalf of the four departments of health.
1. The NHS Confederation represents the organisations that make up the NHS. Our members include the majority of NHS trusts, primary care trusts and health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; trusts and NHS boards in Scotland; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.

Contact details

For more information, or to arrange an interview on the ISDN line (020 7959 7283), please contact Chris Atkinson on 020 7959 7240.

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