New Urgent Care Centres Could Swamp GP Practices With Unresolved Cases, UK

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Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 02 Mar 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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Government plans to replace Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments with new urgent care centres managed by General Practitioners (GPs) and nurses could inundate practices with unresolved cases, according to new figures obtained by the journal Pulse.

It has emerged this week that one of the first urgent care centres in the UK has sent up to 40% of its patients back to their GP.

The new centres are being set up as a gateway to emergency and urgent care - in an attempt to free up A&E departments. However, GPs say the plan lacks an evidence base is a repeat of the errors made with walk-in centres.

The College of Emergency Medicine recently said that it had 'serious concerns' about the centres, saying they were being imposed for reasons of cost and without evidence of 'clinical or financial benefits'.

The urgent care centre in Hemel Hempstead - which saw 6,309 patients in its first three months of opening - predicts it will eventually treat 65% of patients currently visiting A&E. However, according to discharge figures, 38% of patients are being told to get in touch with their own GP, with just 27% discharged, 17% were referred to hospital, while 7% were referred to A&E.

Herts Urgent Care - which runs the centre, says the venture is a success. It is the first of eight centres planned for Hertfordshire as part of the Government's nationwide rollout - being driven by SHAs in the wake of Lord Darzi's Next Stage Review.

However, Dr Peter Graves, CEO of Beds & Herts LMC, said the policy had been forced upon them without appropriate consultation. "We wish they had used walk-in-centres as a model for whether these would work or not. We had some disastrous stories - they led to serious financial deficits for PCTs, and sent people back to GPs for stuff they said they would deal with."

A spokeswoman for Hertfordshire PCTs said: 'This is not new work for GPs and these patients would have been referred to their GP for follow up had they been treated originally at a traditional A&E department.'

Click here to read the full story in Pulse

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