>Harmoni our new OOH provider wants to hand back all uncompleted calls at
>8am.
>
>Martin Knightley
Martin,
Hi!
Hope all goes OK in your neck of the woods.
The important issue here is the contract.
The OOH provider must attend to medical matters that cannot reasonably wait
for daytime services. A call that comes in at 5:30am that can reasonably
wait 4 hours can, in my view, be passed back to practices.
The situation is sadly not the same in the evening. If a call comes before
6:30pm it is (IMHO) the practice's professional responsibility to deal with
it. When we were sharing out the work between ourselves as GPs some
flexibility was a matter for negotiation between us. Now if flexibility is
needed and Harmoni won't do this pro bono, the negotiation needs to be with
the PCT if practices want the service for free (and this negotiation can be
successful), or of course it's open for practices to reach a commercial
arrangement if they prefer.
The other point I'd make about "dealing" with a 6:29pm call is that
"dealing with" might be to advise paracetamol and call in an hour if not
better, it might be to get an ambulance and go directly to hospital - the
only proviso is that whatever decision is made needs to be clinically
sensible and safe for the patient.
I know others on the list have replied slightly differently - so you've got
a range of thoughts to choose from!
Best wishes,
Julian
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