Comment: Fresh concern over UC24 care

Nov 19 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

IT GIVES us little pleasure to return to this topic once more, but today the Liverpool Daily Post reports on fresh misgivings about the service provided by Merseyside’s vital GPs out-of-hours cover service, Urgent Care 24.

In the wake of previous concerns over the quality of the service provided by the agency, today we reveal that Christy Millar, the geology student misdiagnosed by a UC24 doctor, with consequences which left her fighting for her life, had also been wrongly charged for medic- ation, when staff had no right to do so.

Now officials at the Health Care Commission are to investigateUC24 to find out how many patients might similarly have been asked to pay for services which should be provided without charge.

As the HCC pointed out in a letter to Miss Millar: “The Health Care Commission’s advice clearly states that any medication directly administered to a patient at a hospital or walk-in centre is not chargeable. It must be supplied for free.”

UC24 said they would now be arranging to refund Miss Millar, in the light of the HCC’s intervention, but insist that all those patients entitled to free medication would continue to be exempt from charges.

However, this latest revelation, coming as it does after our previous reports into the integrity of the service provided by UC24, can only further worry the hundreds of thousands of people on Merseyside reliant on the Wavertree-based agency for their out-of-hours medical cover.

Much of the work done by UC24 is faultless and successful, and leaves patients content with the service they have received. But the mounting concerns over each new less-than-perfect aspect of such a critical organisation does little to instil confidence in the agency.

We hope the HCC does not find evidence of widespread inappropriate charging of patients. And we must fur- ther hope that, before too long, UC24 can get its act together for the benefit of all on Merseyside who rely on its services.