NHS: Out-of-Hours Services

Lord Laming Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the NHS 111 service is not unsafe—it is a safe service. In the vast majority of the country it has been provided very well for patients. We were confident that the service could be provided well, and so it has proved. The isolated cases where the service has fallen short are highly regrettable, but there is no issue about the quality of NHS Direct’s provision of NHS 111. I am afraid the issue there is that it got its sums wrong and cannot provide the service economically.

[Lord Laming]

The noble Earl will recall that in his response last week on the pressure on accident and emergency services, he referred to the change that had taken place in the GP contract that relieved them of the opportunity of being on call. Are the Government going to renegotiate the GP contract? If not, is there a possibility of placing a primary care service in every accident and emergency unit in the country?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we are straying a little from the Question before us, but I understand the relevance of the noble Lord’s point to the urgent care pathway generally. We are obviously looking very carefully at the GP contract. I cannot tell him at the moment how far negotiations have reached, because we are only at the start of the process. However, his point about primary care services in A&E departments is well made, and many A&E departments do indeed provide that to ensure safe triage of patients on arrival.