In response to the national introduction of various new primary care services offering evening and weekend appointments (ie improving access and extended access arrangements) to Bridlington residents our Primary Care Commissioning Committee, at its meeting held in public in September 2019, approved a contract variation to the core hours of Wolds View Primary Care Centre in Bridlington. 

Following a detailed assessment of activity, Wolds View Surgery changed its opening hours to match other GP practice core hours offering an appointment based service Monday to Friday, 8am to 6.30pm. The variation to the Wolds View contract aims to avoid service duplication and help manage GP capacity across the town. 

Patients continue to have access to routine primary care appointments booked through the practice seven days a week, including at evenings and weekends:

• The Improving Access service offers routine appointments on both Saturday and Sunday mornings on the same site as Wolds View.
• The newly established Bridlington Primary Care Network (which includes all 6 GP practices in Bridlington) is offering a range of Extended Access appointments at evenings and weekends including GP telephone, cervical smear, MSK and online/video consultations to meet local clinical need.

Patients who are registered with Wolds View also continue to have access to urgent treatment as they do now through the Urgent Treatment Centre (7am to 11pm) and GP Out of Hours services (6.30pm to 8am weekdays and 24/7 weekends & Bank Holidays), according to clinical need. 

As part of the work to implement the changes, the CCG encouraged the practice to work closely with their GP Practice Participation Group (PPG) to help raise awareness with their registered patients and encourage better use of online technology to order repeat prescriptions and book/cancel appointments.  As a result of our recommendations to the practice, the PPG developed public information (below) and actively promoted the changes to patients, and we continue to monitor patient feedback. 

The full report is available at:  https://www.eastridingofyorkshireccg.nhs.uk/about-us/primary-care-joint-commissioning-committee/ (page 71).

(For a larger version, please click the image above)