ALTON'S two GP practices are bowing to Government pressure by opening extra hours to offer patients more flexibility. The additional service begins on Monday, June 30, and is a direct result of an approach, made to Tony Blair in the full glare of the television cameras, by a patient asking why she couldn't see her GP out of hours. While apparently failing to recognise the role already played by organisations like ThamesDoc, Gordon Brown picked up and ran with the challenge, with Primary Care Trusts urging local GP surgeries to provide an extra half an hour service for every 1,000 head of patients. For the Wilson Practice, based at Alton Health Centre in Anstey Road, this will take the form of a limited number of pre-bookable GP appointments available outside the surgery's core hours of 8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. The new surgeries will be: l Monday and Thursday 7am – 8am l Monday and Tuesday 6.30pm – 8pm The practice will be open for appointment enquiries and dropping off and collecting prescriptions at these times, but the opening times of the minor injuries unit, minor illness clinic, test results and phlebotomy (blood sample) services remain unchanged. Book-on-the-day appointments become available for booking at 8am daily regardless of when the surgery is open. With 9,000 patients at the Cubitt Practice at the Chawton Park Surgery next to Alton Community Hospital, it will mean two GPs working an additional four and a half hours a week. The new surgeries will be on a pre-booked basis only on: l Tuesdays 6.30pm – 7.45pm l Fridays 7am – 8am. The GP out of hours service, Thamesdoc, continues to be responsible for immediate medical support not requiring accident and emergency attention from 6.30pm until 8am each weekday and throughout the weekend. Hampshire representative on the British Medical Association Dr Terry Cubitt believes it has very little to do with what patients want and more to do with political gain. He says that in the case of the Chawton Park surgery there has been little to no requests from patients for an out of hours service, with most expressing themselves happy with the existing service. He pointed out that it was entirely legal for people to take time off during normal working hours to attend a doctor's appointment. However, some of the employer's organisations had complained that they were losing on absence due to sickness and they too had put pressure on the Government to introduce an increased out of hours service. The concern locally is that while Gordon Brown has provided extra money to cover the provision of what Hampshire PCT has described as a "locally enhanced service" the money has been recycled from what GP surgeries earnt last year and that this income source would not be sustainable.
