New walk-in GP clinic to open seven days a week 'very quickly after staff in place'
NHS Borders director gives insight into new healthcare facility in Hawick...
Last updated 4 hours ago
Plans have been revealed to extend the opening hours of a new walk-in GP clinic in Hawick to seven days a week "very quickly after staff are in place".
The new service will initially operate between the hours of 12pm and 8pm, Monday to Friday, when it opens in the town's Community Hospital in April.
It's part of a Scottish Government initiative designed to end the 8am scramble for a doctor's appointment and reduce pressure on the Emergency Department at Borders General Hospital (BGH).
NHS Borders confirmed the move while answering your questions on the new service following yesterday's announcement.
Gareth Clinkscale, the health board's director of urgent care, community services, and mental health, told Greatest Hits Radio: "We made the decision to locate the service in Hawick due to that being our highest population area.
"It will be an afternoon and evening service, so those individuals that are maybe working in the morning or finishing work late in the afternoon, will be able to pop in and see a GP or an advanced nurse practitioner to get that on the day treatment.
"We will initially be delivering our service Monday to Friday." But he added: "Very, very quickly, once we've got staff in place, expanding that to seven days."
The clinic is one of 16 planned across Scotland. How does it compare to what's currently in place within the hospital and GP service?
Mr Clinkscale: "We're delighted to have been selected as one of the 16 GP walk-in sites across Scotland. This will provide exactly what it says on the tin. It will be a walk-in GP service for individuals from across the Scottish Borders.
"And that service will be providing predominantly minor illness assessment and on the spot treatments for those individuals that turn up.
"This is absolutely in recognition of that 8am rush to get an appointment with your GP. Our GPs across the Scottish Borders are fantastic, they do a huge amount for our patients, but we're very, very keen to improve access."
Are new staff being taken on or is it a case of just reshuffling what's there just now?
Mr Clinkscale said: "We are currently recruiting staff to deliver this service. This service will be very similar to our well-established out-of-hours GP service. So we're working closely with that team to essentially lift the good practice and the service model to deliver this new clinic in Hawick.
"We're also very conscious that by creating this service in Hawick for those patients that have to travel in an evening to our out-of hours GP service based at the BGH, there will now be another option for those patients."
What minor illnesses will the walk-in clinic be able to help with?
Mr Clinkscale said: "We would be expecting to see individuals with cold symptoms, flu symptoms, minor respiratory illness, sickness and vomiting bugs, ear problems, minor skin infections and rashes. That's the typical on the day GP provision.
"This isn't about replacing that high quality complex GP care.
"If it's a long-term condition that you need to be seen for, we absolutely will still encourage you to see your local GP who knows you and will deliver that best, highest quality level of care."
How much do you hope this will help ease pressure on the Emergency Department at Borders General Hospital?
Mr Clinkscale: "We do see a number of patients arriving to the BGH Emergency Department that could be managed elsewhere. That's one of the key drivers for us in terms of creating this new service. It's absolutely a big part of our improvement plans for the next year.
"We've been doing a lot of work to create more capacity in the community, particularly around our frail or older cohort of patients. You may have seen that we opened the frailty unit in December.
"This is another strand to our clinical strategy to deliver more care closer to people's homes."
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