The British Medical Association has said that the action is necessary to make the Government take its request for “a fairer share of NHS funding” seriously.
But frustration is being felt amongst medical practitioners at North Cumbria Integrated Care who feel that the acceptance of this work from Primary Care is causing delays to other patients.
Speaking at a meeting of NCIC directors on Wednesday, Professor Jonathan Weber said: “Now this is really something which is for the ICB to resolve, being the interface between secondary care and primary care but nonetheless, I think it is important to bring it up to board because it is impacting on quality of care to our patients at NCIC.”
A GP working on a laptop. (Image: Unsplash)
As well as a non-executive director on the board, Professor Weber is the chair of its Quality, Improvement and Safety Committee, which has raised an alert about the issue.
This means that it has been escalated to the board of directors for further examination.
Interim CEO Trudie Davies said that Executive Chief Operation Officer Imran Devji was absent from the meeting as he is working to understand the risks the trust is facing from this action as well as the options available to it.
He will work with partners across the health system to produce options on how to address the increase in demand.
Trudie Davies, Interim Chief Executive of North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust. (Image: Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust/Newsquest staff)
Ms Davies said that the risk has been discussed at a number of NCIC committees.
Executive Medical Director, Doctor Adrian Clements said: “It is a very challenging time and colleagues are pressurised.
“From a medical director perspective, we have to keep our patients safe, so there is a transfer of activity from Primary Care, those practices have stopped doing elements of their contacts with the ICB.
“We can’t let patients suffer, so we must accommodate that in the short term but obviously that’s putting pressure on our services. We monitor any incidents through our incident reporting process.”
Dr Adrian Clements, Executive Medical Director at NCIC. (Image: NCIC)
Dr Clements said: “We have our local GP interface group where we’re raising our concerns with certain practices about, ‘are you sure this is the right thing to do?’ Operationally it’s challenging because instead of certain patients going to their multitude of Primary Care practices for accessing blood tests, now they’re asking us to do that.
“We’ve set up hubs for that but that isn’t for the convenience of any patients, having to travel 50, 60 miles to get the same test, rather than going just to the local practice.”
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George Greenwood, 76, told the News & Star in August that he travelled more than 50 miles to Carlisle for a cancer-related blood test from his home in Long Marton, after his GP surgery in Appleby stopped providing the service.
Patients can currently access blood tests and post-operative wound care from NCIC at designated hubs in the trust’s community hospitals as well as a selection of GP practices.
Dr Clements said that partnership working will overcome the issue and trusts cannot get “into a blame game.”
To find out more about the trust’s hubs, visit: www.ncic.nhs.uk/news/important-changes-way-follow-blood-tests-and-post-operative-wound-care-are-provided-north-cumbria