Agenda item

West Herts Hospital Trust’s response to the Committee’s questions regarding the CQC inspection report from the previous meeting

Cllr Guest proposed that Action Points become a standing item within the agenda. The Committee agreed.

Cllr Guest introduced the letter from Louise Halfpenny of WHHT (pg 4 of the agenda pack), noting that this was a response to the questions asked of the officers in the previous meeting. She asked if there were any questions regarding this item. E Glatter noted that the document stated that the West Herts Medical Centre was open 24 hours a day; She said that it was not, and that it was instead open from 8am till 8pm. Cllr Guest asked if this was the West Herts Medical Centre, which was distinct from the Urgent Care Centre (UCC). E Glatter confirmed that it was the former.

Cllr Timmis noted that in light of E Glatter’s comments, that the second paragraph of the letter contained errors with regard to access to GP’s out of hours. Cllr Guest re-iterated that the West Herts Medical Centre was in fact open 8am – 8pm, however said that if the public needed a GP, this could be accessed by telephoning 111. H Brown added that if a member of the public were to present at the UCC outside of these hours and their assessment was that they needed to see a GP, there was a mechanism to pass them through to the out of hours GP service. She acknowledged that the letter was not quite accurate in terms of what it described, but said that the ability to see a GP (out of hours) was there.

There was some discussion regarding the out of hours service, with the Committee pressing the outside representative health professionals to clarify the exact hours and process of accessing a GP out of hours. They accepted that the letter did not reflect the exact hours and process, however they said that an out of hours GP was accessible to the public by either contacting 111, or by attending the UCC and being assessed by a nurse as requiring a GP.

Cllr Maddern asked if there was a GP in the West Herts Medical Centre 24 hours. K Magson confirmed that although there was not walk-in access, there was a GP in the building 24 hours a day – however they could be reached in different ways. 

Following a proposal by Cllr W Wyatt-Lowe, it was agreed by H Brown that WHHT would provide a further letter that provides clear clarification of this issue. Cllr Guest thanked her, and asked that it be provided as an action point for the following meeting.

Action Point: H Brown to ensure that WHHT provide a further letter of clarification regarding the process surrounding access to a GP out of hours for meeting of 31 October 2017.

E Glatter requested that waiting times were also added to this item; she said this was because patients could wait a long time for an out of hours GP. K Magson said that this was a separate item within itself. Instead she suggested that a specific agenda item was added about the new out of hours integrated 111 service, what its KPI’s were, how it was measured. Cllr Guest agreed with this proposal, and asked that this be added to the work programme as a future item.

Action Point: The ‘waiting times of new out of hours for the UCC and the 111 service’ to be added to Health in Dacorum work programme as a new agenda item for the future.