NHS Hammersmith and Fulham, the CCG hosting the digital service GP at Hand, has revealed plans to cut urgent care centre hours due to its ‘very challenging financial position’.
Pulse has reported that the CCG is facing a £31.8m deficit due to the pressure from thousands of out-of-area patients registering with GP at Hand, which is hosted by a GP surgery in Fulham. Hammersmith and Fulham CCG is responsible for all the patients registered with GP at Hand and it has to cover their wider care costs as well as increasing the practice’s global sum funding.
As of mid-March 2019, only 10% of the 47,000 patients registered with the digital-first NHS GP service were from the host CCG.
The CCG’s plans, which are under consultation, would close two GP hubs which provide evening and weekend GP or nurse appointments and the urgent care centre at Hammersmith Hospital overnight from midnight until 8am.
Full story on Pulse, 13 May 2019.
