“Slightly bumpy mobilisation” as new Shropshire GP out of hours service awaits drugs licence

Mitigations have been put in place as a new out of hours GP service in Shropshire awaits its own licence to store and supply controlled drugs, a meeting heard.

Shropshire NHS chiefs were told that there has been a “slightly bumpy” handover from long term provider Shropdoc but a hospital chief praised HealthHero for being “incredible” and a meeting was told there have been no patient incidents.

Organisations that run out of hours GP services have to have a controlled drugs licence from the Home Office to legally possess, store, and supply certain medications.

The Care Quality Commission says it can take at least six months from the point of applying for a licence to receiving one. The contract was formally awarded to HealthHero on July 14.

NHS Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin has this week confirmed that Home Office site visits have now been booked for “early December”.

Dr Lorna Clarson, NHS Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin’s chief medical officer, told a board meeting in Shrewsbury on Wednesday that there had been a “slightly bumpy mobilisation” for the new contract. She praised new provider HealthHero for its “can do attitude”.

Dr Clarson’s report said that “mitigations are in place to ensure access, with General Practice, Shropshire Community Heath Trust and The Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust also supporting.

“NHS STW and HealthHero have applied for an expedited process and also raised via CQC for additional support.”

The report added that mitigation “has ensured that access is always available and no issues have been reported.”

Health leaders were told that there had been a contract mobilisation period of five months. But that was shortened to less than three months because of a review carried out by the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel.

There were also issues caused by a “reduced the number of staff that transferred across to HealthHero”, a “significant number of short notice cancellations for GP shifts over the first weekend,” and a “technical issue between two clinical systems which impacted on the information flows between HealthHero and General Practice.”

But the meeting heard that overall the “mobilisation has progressed well” and a number of  positives have been seen during the first month of the contract. These include that “HealthHero are meeting all required performance targets” and there has been “postive feedback” from patients.

NHS leaders expect that the new contract will “lead to improvements in the responsiveness and timeliness of the service, preventing admission, use of emergency services and ill health, and leading to improved health outcomes for patients.”

Jo Williams, the chief executive of both SaTH and Shropcom, said: “Hero is exactly what they have been. They have been incredible.

“It wasn’t easy for them to take the contract but I think it will continue to flourish.”

The meeting was told that there has been an improvement in ambulance handover times and HealthHero is “meeting all required performance targets.”

Simon Whitehouse, NHS STW chief executive, said that a report was presented to the board because it wants to be “completely transparent” and the issue to have “full visibility”.