'Serious discussions' held over out-of-hours care (From Halesowen News)

'Serious discussions' held over out-of-hours care

11:56am Tuesday 9th February 2010

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“SERIOUS discussions” are taking place about the future of Take Care Now (TCN) in Worcestershire, according to Wyre Forest MP, Dr Richard Taylor.

Dr Taylor, a former consultant physician, has vowed “there will be changes” after last week’s inquest ruled David Gray was killed unlawfully by German locum Dr Daniel Ubani.

Mr Gray’s son, Stuart, a GP from Blakedown, has made repeated calls for NHS Worcestershire to scrap TCN’s contract since his father’s death.

NHS Worcestershire has said it would “continue to monitor” TCN but Dr Taylor said health chiefs were reviewing out-of-hours care in the county.

He added: “As soon as I can say anything that isn’t confidential, I will report back.”

The Independent Community and Health Concern MP explained he felt GPs “should be involved” in an out-of-hours care rota, rather than the service being provided by a private firm.

He went on: “You can’t go back to the days when GPs were on call 24/7 but, before GPs’ contracts were changed, we had a very good co-operative of local GPs.

“They were able to provide three doctors per night - one in a primary care unit, one doing visits and one on call if needed.

“Because there were 50-plus GPs involved, that meant they were only on once every three weeks.

“As customers of the service, we knew that if we phoned up to see a GP out of hours, they wouldn’t be on duty the next day. It was an excellent system.”

NHS Cambridgeshire and NHS Suffolk both dropped the services of TCN in recent months and an inquiry into TCN has been launched by watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

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