Southport residents share just two standby doctors for out of hours care with 280,000 other people in Sefton.

The alarming statistics also show that last month Sefton's doctors agreed to only 17% of home visits, The Champion can reveal.

The out of hours services are available to patients that need to see their GP urgently at night, on bank holidays or at weekends.

GPs are based at Formby overnight but they will travel to either Litherland Town Hall Health Centre or to Southport Out-of-Hours Centre to meet a patient for a consultation, if necessary.

The statistics are revealed for the first time as Health Secretary Andy Burnham admitted that the out of hours care is 'unacceptable' in many areas.

A new contract came into force in 2004 which allowed GPs to opt out of organising out of hours care passing on the responsibility to their Primary Care Trust (PCT).

But now a new report by the PCT has lifted the lid on the problematic out of hours situation, showing enormous variations across the country.
The study shows that many PCTs are failing to act quickly enough to urgent cases.

While Government targets say a GP should visit or at least ring up within 20 minutes all patients whose cases are designated urgent, out of 84 PCTs in the survey, just two met this target.

In terms of the minimum number of out of hours GPs on duty, NHS Sefton fares slightly better than the national average of 142,000 with 140,000 people for each GP outside office hours.

Nationally, the number of patients receiving home visits varies from 25 per cent in one PCT to 2 per cent in another, compared to 17% for Sefton last January.

Liz Melia, Assistant Director of Primary and Urgent Carefor NHS Sefton Community Health Services, said: “Call levels vary but usually number between five and 10, which includes telephone advice calls or requests for home visits.

"We have two out-of-hours GPs on duty each night as well as a paid stand-by. The provision is based on requirements to meet high quality standards and the needs of the local population.

"The service is reviewed regularly to ensure it is working well.

"Sometimes the GP asks the patient to come to the health centre if it is felt it would be better to have access to equipment within the consultation room, providing the patient can travel to the site.

“If the patient cannot travel and needs to be seen then the GP will make a home visit.

"Using January 2010 as a basis, approximately 17% of calls overnight resulted in a home visit. This increased to 32% when including visits by the patients to see a GP at one of our three bases."

By David Raven