NHS: Out-of-Hours Services

Baroness Gould of Potternewton Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are straying a little from the Question before us, but I understand the relevance of the noble Lord’s point to the urgent care pathway generally. We are obviously looking very carefully at the GP contract. I cannot tell him at the moment how far negotiations have reached, because we are only at the start of the process. However, his point about primary care services in A&E departments is well made, and many A&E departments do indeed provide that to ensure safe triage of patients on arrival.

[Baroness Gould of Potternewton]

My Lords, during the process to establish this contract, concerns were raised by many GPs and others which, we are told, were ignored. Can there be a guarantee that this time there will be absolute full concentration and discussion with the relevant bodies, with the GPs and others, who want to be assured that the new contract, whenever it comes, is going to be valid and will work? How are we going to explain this process to the public, who are going to feel very uncertain about the future of 111?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I can give the noble Baroness that reassurance, because we want local commissioners and doctors involved in the process to be confident in the service that they are commissioning. We did not ignore the warnings from Dr Buckman and others in the BMA. Indeed, on the strength of that we allowed a six-month extension to those providers who felt they needed it to ensure that they were confident in providing a good service. Only two providers took us up on that, which seemed to indicate that our confidence in the service was not misplaced.