Archived: Primary Care Out Of Hours (GUM site)

Updated 22 January 2015

The service is commissioned by the Clinical Commissioning Group to provide Out of Hours consultations to patients registered with local GPs in the Blackburn with Darwen locality. The service is provided from 8pm – 12 midnight Monday to Friday and from 8am – 12 midnight at weekends.

Patients accessed the service via their own GP telephone answering system which redirected them to the 111 service. Patients were triaged and prioritised by 111 service and their details passed to the ELMS call handling where they were contacted and offered a timed appointment.

There is one GP available Monday to Friday supported by a receptionist offering 15 minute appointments and there are 2 GP’s and nurse offering appointments at weekend.

The service is part of a not for profit organisation who deliver Out of Hours services across the local region at a number of locations.

The service is located within the NHS Trust and shares their premises with a day time Trust service who vacate the premises at 6pm to allow Primary Care Out of Hours to start their appointments.

A recent Patient Voice Group (PVG) walk about of the location identified a number of issues that may be experienced by patients accessing the service. These included poor signage of the service, lack of awareness of Trust staff of the location of the service and the distance from usable car parks especially for patients with mobility restrictions. However the PVG acknowledged these were not issues that were within the remit of the service but were urging the Trust to address these findings.

Updated 22 January 2015

Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We inspected ELMS Primary Care Out of Hours (GUM site) on 19 November 2014. We carried out a comprehensive inspection of this service under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

We rated the service as Good.

Our key findings were as follows:

• Access to the service was effective.
• There was a clear management structure to support and guide staff.
• Patients told us they felt safe at the service and were treated with respect, dignity and compassion.
• The practice was well maintained and clean.

We saw several areas of outstanding practice including:

• The use of the Medical Intraoperability Gateway (MIG) electronic system to allow GPs at the service to access the front page of patients records held at their usual GP practice. This allowed GPs at the service to have read only access to patients allergies, medication and any recent tests carried out by their GP. This was only available once patients had given their consent.

However, there were also areas of practice where the provider needs to make improvements. 

In addition the provider could:

• Improve signage within the hospital for the service
• Ensure appropriate access to emergency equipment.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice