Record doctor call-outs over Christmas

Jan 6 2009 by Sam Wood, The Journal

AN emergency out-of-hours doctors service in the North East had a record number of call-outs over the Christmas week.

In just one hour on the first Saturday after Christmas, over 190 patients called Northern Doctors Urgent Care (NDUC). It is traditionally the busiest time of year for the out-of-hours GP care provider, but this year has seen calls rise to record levels.

NDUC provides access to GP services for 934,000 people across Newcastle, Northumberland, North Tyneside and South Tyneside.

It is commissioned by Primary Care Trusts across the region to handle calls to doctors outside normal surgery hours.

The service, which has bases throughout the region, received a record 1,155 cases on Saturday, December 27, a 15% increase compared to the first Saturday after Christmas last year.

Over 190 calls were answered by staff between 9.30am and 10.30am on that morning. More than 750 patients were seen by a doctor, twice the average level for a Saturday. Extra staff were drafted in to cope with the demand.

Overall during the Christmas period calls were up around 2.6% on last year, NDUC bosses said.

The service has a target that all urgent calls are visited within two hours, with routine ones being dealt with in six hours.

All calls are graded for urgency and then either dealt with over the phone, passed to the emergency services or a doctor is sent out.

John Harrison, chief executive of NDUC, said: “As always in GP out-of-hours, we experienced a wide range of clinical cases but this Christmas there was a significant increase in demand.

“Like most of the country, large numbers of people in the North East were suffering from colds and flu, and complaining of respiratory problems, particularly old people.

“And part of the increase could be down to the fact that more people know about our service and that they can phone us instead of going to a walk-in centre.

“On the plus side, we did see a reduction in the number of people phoning in who needed extra medication.

“We had a lot of extra staff on the busiest days, we had around 70 doctors and seven nurses who were manning phones or who were out on the road and everyone who needed to be seen by a doctor was seen.