Out-of-hours care delays putting patients in danger

Sep 13 2007 by Deborah James, Liverpool Daily Post

PATIENTS with life-threatening conditions face dangerous delays in receiving out-of-hours care in Wirral, it was revealed yesterday.

The borough’s primary care trust (PCT) is failing to hit key standards because it is too slow answering telephone calls and starting assessments and emergency consultations.

Other PCTs in the region are achieving the core indicators, although one trust, in Halton and St Helens, failed to provide the information. It comes six months after the company which runs out-of-hours GP cover for Liverpool, south Sefton and Knowsley, faced similar criticism when it failed to meet core criteria.

But it is understood the company, called Urgent Care 24, is now back up to national standards and is bidding for the contract to continue running services.

However the Liberal Democrats, who carried out the latest research, said yesterday patients had been being let down in Wirral since family doctors across the country were allowed to opt out of out-of-hours care.

In response, Wirral PCT insisted it was introducing changes that would ensure it hit the standards for assessments and face-to-face consultations by the end of this year.

Furthermore, it said, its failure in respect of answering telephone calls was because just 0.7% of callers were greeted with an engaged tone.

A PCT spokeswoman said: “All patients who contact Wirral out-of-hours are managed by GPs whether over the telephone, at the walk-in centre, or in their own home, something that is not the case in many other services.”

Weekend and night-time care has been a hot political issue since 90% of GPs opted out of providing it under a new 2004 contract, handing responsibility to PCTs. The shake-up, to ensure GPs are fresh for weekday work, has led to PCTs employing private firms, or groups of independent doctors instead.

A report, last year, by the Nat- ional Audit Office (NAO), crit- icised the lack of preparation before its introduction.

Meanwhile, GPs, already earning £100,000 on average, were able to dictate high pay rates where care was scarce, pocketing nearly £1,000 for a shift, it said.

Every PCT measures its performance against 13 quality requirements, information obtained by the Lib-Dems under the Freedom of Information Act.

The standard for answering calls was not achieved by nearly half of trusts.

Norman Lamb, the Lib-Dem health spokesman, said: “Answer- ing calls quickly, and providing a swift and accurate phone diagnosis, can save lives.”

Mr Lamb pledged the Lib-Dems would introduce a “Patient’s Contract” guaranteeing high standards of out-of-hours care, a policy to be fleshed out tomorrow.

Recently, health minister Andy Burnham denied claims of prob- lems in out-of-hours care, saying eight out of 10 patients described their care as satisfactory.