Out-of-hours GP care quality ‘generally of a high standard’

A new Care Quality Commission (CQC) report has demonstrated the generally excellent standard of care offered by out-of-hours GPs.

The regulator inspected 30 NHS GP out-of-hours services, which are run by 24 organisations and provide out-of-hours care for 19 million people – approximately 36 per cent of the population in England.

Most were found to regularly monitor the quality of care they provided, with fewer locum GPs covering shifts than expected. There were also good examples of services reaching out to communities to raise awareness of services, with many developing care in line with patient feedback.

However, variations in the standard of care were observed nationwide, with some providers failing to implement safe mechanisms for storing and checking medicine stocks, utilising inadequate recruitment processes or not giving patients enough information on how to make complaints.

Professor Steve Field, chief inspector of general practice at the CQC, said: "We saw lots of good practice and it's important that these services learn from each other to improve their services. There are also some important lessons in here for all GP services to learn from."

This comes as the government seeks to introduce seven-day access to GP services across the entire country, a key pledge in prime minister David Cameron's 2015 re-election campaign.