Care Doc call for Ballymote
A call has been made for the establishment of a CARE DOC facility at the new primary health centre at Ballymote.
The issue was raised by Councillor Dara Mulvey at a Regional Health Forum meeting.
In response, Cllr Mulvey was informed that the GP Out of Hours service covering Sligo and North Leitrim was provided by service arrangement through Caredoc and operated from the Barrack Street Primary Care Centre in Sligo.
GP Out of Hours services provided an emergency out of hours family doctor service for patients with urgent medical problems who need to contact a doctor after regular surgery hours. A telephone nursing support service is also provided and callers have access to an experienced nurse in the out of hours service.
Looking specifically at the area of Ballymote, service data for 2019 showed an average of 11 patients per week from that area needing a face-to-face consultation with a duty GP in Caredoc.
Fifty per cent of these consultations were on weekdays and 50% at weekends. In addition to centre based consultations, there were 117 home visits provided in 2019 for patients in the Ballymote area who were not well enough to travel to the Barrack Street Primary Care Centre.
The Sligo Caredoc service has been operational for the past four years and to date distance has not been raised as an issue.
Patients availing of the service usually do so, only on an infrequent basis as it is an emergency service.
The current location of Caredoc means that if needed by patients, there is close proximity to Sligo University Hospital should a patient require referral to the Emergency Department there.
Various counties do have differing GP Out of Hours arrangements in place as there is no single model of service agreed nationally.
Caredoc provides GP out of hours services in a number of other CHO areas and confirms that distances travelled to centres are much greater in other CHOs and counties than the distance between Ballymote and Sligo said John Hayes, Chief Officer, CHO1.