Health staff see spike in out-of-hour patients

Three mobile doctors saw 210 patients between October 16 and October 31; up 26 on the 186 patients seen in the first fortnight of the new regime which kicked in at the start of October.

A sole triage nurse manning the service handled an extra 94 calls during the second fortnight.

Paul Cavanagh, Commissioning Lead of the Health and Social Care Board, has written to Derry City Council to advise that 210 face-to-face consultations were carried out by the Western Urgent Care GP out-of-hours service.

The service operates across Londonderry, Limavady, Strabane, Omagh and Enniskillen during the Red-Eye Shift - between midnight and 8.30am.

The planned reduction was put back until September 30 to allow adequate time for nurse advisors to carry out the appropriate training needed to carry out triage.

The latest fortnightly monitoring report shows that 210 face-to-face consultations were carried out and - as in the first two weeks - just one of these was classed as urgent.

Western Urgent Care received 526 calls during the redeye shift; 314 of these calls resulted in telephone advice; the remaining 212 required a face-to-face consultation, i.e. base attendance or home visit.

210 face-to-face consultations eventually took place, one was urgent, 40 less urgent, 143 routine whilst 26 were referred from A&E. One person did not attend a consultation at a GP out-of-hour base and another attended after the appointment time.

All 210 (100 per cent) attending in time were seen within the timescales specified in the NI Quality Standards.

Despite the spike in calls and consultations the second fortnightly report shows usage of the service was similar to that revealed by an analysis in February 2010 which found that during the Red-Eye Shift - there were an average of 7.1 face-to-face consultations at Altnagelvin, 2.3 at Limavady Health Centre, and 2.4 at Strabane Health Centre. In Omagh the figure was 3 and in Enniskillen 3.4 - 18.2 per Red-Eye shift across the entire Western area