Action plan for out-of-hours GP service after failures, says NHS

Health bosses have been grilled by civic chiefs over failures in Gloucestershire's out-of-hours GP service.

Practice Plus Group (PPG), the firm running the county's service, was told last month it must improve staffing to meet its legal obligations.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors found the service still required improvement, with rota gaps.

NHS trust One Gloucestershire says an action plan has been produced.

The CQC also found that 73 patients who were classed as urgent over the weekend of its inspection were still waiting to speak to a clinician the following Monday morning.

Health chiefs were asked about their plans to make improvements at Gloucestershire County Council's health overview and scrutiny committee meeting, held on Tuesday,

Managers have been told they must make sure enough GPs and other staff are on duty to cover 637,000 patients during evenings and weekends, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Scrutiny committee chair Andrew Gravells said the service had required improvement for more than five years.

"We have a pattern here which we quite rightly are looking at," he said.

Vice chairman David Drew said the situation had spiralled over the years: "We need to get to the bottom of why this service has required improvement for so long, and yet now there does seem to be more problems than during the period when we first became aware the service requires improvement."

One Gloucestershire's deputy CEO, Ellen Rule, said they had produced an action plan to deal with the issues highlighted by the CQC inspection.

She said the 111 service had received an outstanding CQC rating but it did not diminish the required improvement of the out-of-hours GP service.

"We take the CQC rating of out-of-hours GP services extremely seriously," Ms Rule said.

"Working in partnership with PPG, we've introduced some new ways of working to reflect the improvement we now want to see."

She also said they were working on a six-month plan to redesign the service from the bottom up.

Councillor Collette Finnegan questioned the plan, telling the committee they had "heard these excuses before".

Ms Rule said they were now taking a comprehensive approach to the issue.

"We've had challenges across the system in a number of emergency care areas. This is part of us taking a root-and-branch approach to improving emergency care services," Ms Rule said.

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