Out of Hours Organisations in the Bristol area

Out of Hours patients phone their usual GP and either hear a phone message with an OOH telephone number or are transferred to an answering service or the relevant OOH service. Following procurement exercises by local PCTs in 2005/6 and 2008/9 contracts were awarded

• North Somerset awarded to Harmoni until 31/3/09
• The UBHT area of Bristol (Bristol South and West) awarded to Brisdoc until 31/3/11
• The Bristol PCT 'Southmead area' of NBT awarded to Frendoc from 1/11/08 until 31/3/11. This service is based at local GP premises The Greenway Community Practice http://www.hoffmangps.nhs.uk/whereweare.html.
• The S Glos PCT 'Southmead area' of NBT awarded to Brisdoc until 30/9/09. This service is based at the Primary Care Centre Southmead Hospital
• The 'Frenchay area' part of NBT awarded to Frendoc until 31/3/11. This service is based at Frenchay Hospital.

Separate overnight services (11pm-8am) are run by Frendoc, Brisdoc, and Harmoni.

For more information about the service, job opportunities or GP registrar training contact the OOH organisation.

The current providers of service are:

Brisdoc www.brisdoc.co.uk

5 Knowle West health Park, Downton Rd, Bristol, BS4 1WH Tel:0117 9030015 Fax:0117 9030004

Brisdoc services practices in the south and west, inner city, and north and west Bristol area and will provide a service for its practices from 6.30pm till 8am on weekdays and from 8am to 8am at weekends and on Bank Holidays. It has 3 primary care centres. One is based at the NHS Walk in Centres at Knowle West Health Park (BriSdoc South), another near the A&E Dept at the BRI (BriSdoc Central) and the third at the Primary Care Centre at Southmead Hospital (Brisdoc North). The Brisdoc North service was previously Nordoc until it merged with Brisdoc in May 2007. Brisdoc North has an administration centre at Horfield Health Centre, Lockleaze Road, Horfield Bristol BS7 9RR
Tel: 0117 9696330 Fax: 0117 9696979

From 1/11/08 BriSdoc North services only the S Glos PCT part of the 'traditional' Nordoc practices around Southmead Hospital in the North Bristol area.

Frendoc www.frendoc.com

12a High Street, Staple Hill, Bristol, BS16 5HP Tel: 0117 9568820 Fax: 0117 9566713

Frendoc services its 'traditional' practices around Frenchay Hospital in the North east of Bristol area and will provide a service for its practices from 6.30pm till 8am on weekdays and from 8am to 8am at weekends and on Bank Holidays. The primary care centre is based in Frenchay Hospital.

From 1/11/08 Frendoc also service the Bristol PCT part of the 'traditional' Nordoc practices around Southmead Hospital in the North Bristol area from its Greenway Community Practice site.

Harmoni www.harmonicpo.net

The name is an abbreviation for "HARrow Medics Out of hours Network Inc". The Harmoni CPO and partners service maintains the existing primary care centres at Weston and Clevedon, with the home visiting service being based out of Clevedon Primary Care Centre

The new ‘8am-8pm/Seven day’ health centres

A new development is the ‘The Equitable Access to Primary Medical Care Programme’ initiated by Lord Darzi that required every PCT in England to establish a  Health Centre, which will be open for 12 hrs a day, every day of the year (08:00 to 20:00). Most will be open on or after 1/4/09.  These new Health Centre will see registered patients for the full range of Primary Care, and  also see walk-in unregistered patients for Primary Care services. Oddly some of these centre will be co-located with the OOH services and traditional practices which means patients will have at times have a choice of which GP service they use on the same premises.
In N Somerset Gryphon Health (In association with Harmoni) was successful in their  bid for these services.  The Weston service is in two locations. There is a new GP facility in the town centre to cater for the local population and, in addition to this, a walk-in facility at Weston General Hospital for those who don’t need to go to A&E. In Brisdol Brisdoc won the bids and will be setting up three new centres in Bristol. South Glos NHS will be setting up two new centres.

GP registrar Training for OOH

GP registrars need to make arrangements for their OOH as sson as possible when they start working in practices. GP registrars are expected to complete 72 hours OOH training in each 12months of general practice and complete a structured training diary. The GP school gives advice on what GPRs need to do. All the OOH organisations will help GP registrars complete their OOH training. Start to book your sessions early to ensure you can complete training!
http://primarycare.severndeanery.org/training/gp_speciality_training/out_of_hours_training

Advice on the management of Common Medical Emergencies in Primary care

'The Orange Book': http://www.kingstonpct.nhs.uk/home/orange_book/

Dept of Health OOH webpages

Contain comprehensive information on a range of out-of-hours topics. Categorized policy documents, non-clinical guidance, links and other resources can be accessed here by searching 'out of hours' http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/index.htm

Research on OOH

Mike Rossdale, Terry Kemple and other local researchers conducted research about variations in referral rates by GPs working OOH, Many local GPs and OOH organisations have contributed to this research. The last part was published in 2009

•  Risk taking in general practice: GP out-of-hours referrals to hospital- a cross sectional study. Rossdale M, Kemple T, Payne S, Calnan M, Greenwood R, Ingram J. British Journal of General Practice 2009;59:24-28