GP received a letter last week from a West Yorkshire GP complaining that the government had decreed that during extended hours practices could not offer flu vaccinations or Heavy Goods Vehicle medicals.
This seemed ridiculous to us and we almost pulled it from our letters page because the PCT involved and the DoH were initially unable to comment.
But this week, on the day the page was to be printed, it emerged that the GP involved was correct and that the DoH has barred practices from providing non-NHS services in extended hours. Read this week's GP for the full story and the letter which provoked it.
If win-win policies are the must-haves for politicians, surely this is the first lose-lose?
It's a loss for patients who can only attend their practice in extended hours but find the service they require is unavailable at that time and they must return in hours.
And it's also a loss for the practice team working extended hours (which it probably didn't want to provide in the first place) which finds that it can't deal fully with its patient who must now return in hours, adding to its workload.
To complete the farce, the lack of clarity with which the DoH has expressed its policy means that at least one PCT is interpreting it to mean that enhanced services cannot be undertaken during extended hours. So, if you want flu jabs, travel vaccinations or HGV medicals amongst many other things in extended hours, then tough.
Thanks for that Gordon.
Surely the GPC is right when it argues that extended hours should deal with the services that patients expect during the day and the DoH is wrong to decide what can and can't form part of the consultation between GP and patient?
Isn't this bureaucracy-gone-mad exactly the sort of government micro-management that NHS workers are tiring of and one reason why Labour will lose the next election?
neil.durham@haymarket.com