RESIDENTS of Teesdale were told last month they may lose an out-of-hours appointment service at the Richardson Hospital, in Barnard Castle, because it is underused.
However, it appears the service has already been binned, if my experience last week is anything to go by.
The clinic at the Richardson Hospital is just one of nine hubs, which were set up by the Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to provide primary care services seven days a week.
It was set up to operate out-of-hours nurse practitioner appointments between 6pm and 8pm on weekdays and 8am and 1pm on weekends.
However the CCG claims the service is underused and resources could be better spent by combining services at one hub in Bishop Auckland.
Many residents have frequently complained they were unaware of the service or how they could use it.
As a reporter for the Teesdale Mercury, I attended the consultation at Glaxo Sports and Social Club in Barnard Castle last month and was aware of it so I tried to access it.
Barnard Castle Surgery was able to provide an appointment for me on the day I rang (Wednesday, December 5). Unfortunately the time of the appointment meant I couldn’t take it – it was half an hour later and I was more than half an hour’s drive away.
I asked about the out-of-hours service at Richardson Hospital. The receptionist immediately said “the Richardson is closed” . I knew this was incorrect, so she spoke to a colleague and told me to ring the NHS 111 phoneline at 5.30pm to get an appointment.
I rang and ten minutes later received a return call from nurse practitioner with a Newcastle area code. She too went through the same checks and said because I was a non-emergency case, she could book me an appointment for the next day at my own GP surgery, with no mention of the out-of-hours clinic at Richardson Hospital. After asking about whether I could get an appointment at Richardson Hospital, she said there was no such location on her system.
She explained this was not the first time she had been asked the service in Barnard Castle and promised to flag up my call and concerns. Perhaps one of the reasons the out-of-hours clinic at Richardson Hospital is underused is because the NHS staff elected to direct patients to it are completely unaware of it.
The public consultation into “improving seven day access” to primary care is due to end on Wednesday, December 19 and it is still possible to have your say online by completing a questionnaire. Visit www.haveasay.org.uk
Missed opportunity?
IN a statement, Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group said: “The GP hub currently based at the Richardson Hospital in Barnard Castle is still open and staff at local GP practices and NHS 111 should direct patients to that hub if it is the most appropriate one to meet their need and the closest one to them.
“This will not change until final decisions have been made following the completion of the current formal public consultation.
“We will look into why the hub at the Richardson Hospital did not come up on the NHS 111 system during this particular call. We have audited calls previously and found that five per cent of callers have been directed to a service that is not the closest to where they live. We call this a ‘missed opportunity’ and work closely with the North East Ambulance Service who provide NHS 111 to prevent this happening.”
