DOCTORS could be asked to open their surgeries on public holidays in an attempt to deal with surges in demand to Scotland's out-of-hours NHS helpline.
NHS 24 sees large surges in demand at Christmas and Easter, when GP practices are closed for several days at a time.
Yesterday, the phoneline's bosses said they were in discussions to see how they could tempt GPs to open during holiday periods to
improve patient access to primary care.
The NHS 24 annual review in Glasgow also heard about progress being made in reducing staff absence due to sickness and also cutting waiting times for patients needing to be called back by their advisers.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Health Secretary, who chaired the meeting, asked for assurances that patients were not being left waiting for hours.
The meeting heard that public holidays were often challenging for NHS 24.
Last Easter saw the service receive almost 40,000 calls over four days – up over 19 per cent on the previous year.
The lack of a national awareness campaign to warn people of Easter closures was blamed for the rise.
The officials were asked whether it had considered asking GPs to work during holiday periods to reduce demand.
Dr George Crooks, NHS 24 interim chief executive, said the service was in discussions to see whether it could secure some practices opening on holidays.
He said it was not for NHS 24 to force holiday working among GPs, who are now employed through contract arrangements to supply extended opening.
But he added: "What we are in discussion with the health department about is how we could utilise that contract to reward GPs for working on holiday Monday mornings, for example, as a way of providing an increased flexibility of service."
Many GPs have been reluctant to sign up for extended hours, despite cash incentives. The initiative was brought in to increase access to planned appointments at evenings and weekends, rather than cope with unscheduled or emergency visits.
But Ms Sturgeon said she was keen to see whether there was scope to increase access further. "I am on record as being very supportive of more flexible opening from GPs.
"There is a logical extension here. But we don't expect GPs or any other worker to work round the clock at Christmas or at these times of year so it is important that these things are taken forward in a proper way."
Andrew Buist, from the British Medical Association, said: "Given the bad feeling there has been around the imposition of extended hours, I could see there being difficulties in expanding that further."
Ms Sturgeon said she was "cautiously optimistic" by improvements in sickness absence at NHS 24, which has been higher than elsewhere in the NHS.
Against a target of 6 per cent, the last quarter of 2007-8 saw the sickness rate standing at 8.59 per cent. But NHS 24 said that by July, this had fallen to 5.79 per cent.
Ms Sturgeon ordered a progress report by November.
IN NUMBERS1,508,597
the record number of calls received by NHS 24 in 2007-8
96%
of calls to NHS 24 are answered within 30 seconds
5
number of seconds it took on average to answer a call in the past year
39,497
number of calls during this year's four-day Easter holiday
1
call to NHS 24 from a Scottish couple in Thailand after one of them suffered a monkey bite
The full article contains 591 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
