Lack of GPS could be driving emergency department numbers up
The head of NHS Forth Valley has admitted they do not know how many people are attending emergency departments because they can’t get GP appointments.
NHS Forth Valley board member Michele Mcclung raised the issue when the board met on Tuesday for the first time since it was placed in special measures by the Scottish Government.
The government intervention highlighted problems in particular with waiting times at forth valley royal hospital’ s emergency department.
Dr Mcclung said it was important to find out how much this was due to overbusy GPS. She said: “Everyone in this room will have tried to
call their GP and will not have gotanappointment–wewon’t all go to A&E but some people do.”
Dr Mcclung said members had “a good understanding” of the data around ED attendance, which has come under close scrutiny over recent months. She said: “I would really like a bit more information around what’s happening in GP’S surgeries – to see what’s happening and see what the correlation is around our increased attendance in out of hours and ED. We do know that there is a correlation between it – but do we know what the strength of that is?”
Dr Mcclung, who is also chair of Falkirk’s Integration Joint board(ijb ), began by saying she understood that GPS are not employed by the NHS – and she made it clear that local GPS have a good relationship with the health board.
NHS Forth Valley chief executive,cat hie cow an, said at the moment there is a lack of data, which is also a national problem. She told the board that they are already engaging with GPS and propose to use some non-recurring funding to capture data“that would give us much more intelligence”.