Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Health for his assessment of the effectiveness of the Dalriada Urgent Care provision of an out-of-hours GP service for all residents within the Northern Health and Social Care Trust area.
Minister of Health: The GP Out of Hours service is a core element of health and social care provision in primary care. Dalriada Urgent Care (DUC) is commissioned to provide the GP Out of Hours (OOHs) service across the Northern area. The GP OOHs service is available Mon-Fri from 6pm to 8am the next morning, as well as 24 hours at weekends and during public holidays.
Patients who contact the service will be triaged by a telephone or video call by clinical staff. Many patients can be safely and effectively clinically triaged by either a Nurse Advisor, Prescribing Pharmacist, an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) or GP. The majority of patients who contact Dalriada Urgent Care OOHs service do not require to travel to be seen face-to-face.
For 2024/25 contact numbers were 134,597; 75% of Dalriada’s patient contacts were managed by telephone or video call with a Clinician; home visits accounted for 5% of their contacts; and patients seen face to face in a GP OOH centre accounted for 20% of contacts.
GP rota fill rate for 2024/25 was an average of 96%. Since the adoption of a two centre model based at Causeway and Antrim Area Hospitals Dalriada has been more successful in staffing its GP duty rotas during the Out of Hours period.
Dalriada covers the largest population of the 5 GP Out of Hours providers, circa 479k, being the resident population of the Northern Trust area. The population of the Northern Trust area has a higher proportion of older people than the average for N Ireland and is impacted to a higher degree by rural needs.
Patient contacts are triaged with the service providing multiple care pathways: telephone advice, clinic visits at Antrim or Causeway hospitals, or home visits when clinically appropriate for those unable to travel.
Dalriada employs a substantial workforce including sessional doctors, triage nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, prescribing pharmacists, mental health practitioners and operational staff, ensuring a multidisciplinary approach to urgent care.
The service has faced staffing challenges in the past, similar to other urgent care providers. The triage system and multiple care pathways (phone advice, clinic visits, home visits) ensure flexibility in addressing urgent needs.
Dalriada are highly responsive service providers and this has been seen in how the organisation has responded to demanding challenges for example the outbreak of Scarlet Fever in 2022/23 and previous to that, the Covid Pandemic.
Dalriada is governed by a Steering Council established in 2005 and constituted of members in line with national guidance, developed to support and oversee the work of mutual organisations. The Council includes a Dalriada staff representative, 4 GPs, Northern Trust senior management and service user representatives. It meets quarterly.
Dalriada Urgent Care is a vital component of the Northern Health and Social Care’s healthcare infrastructure, providing essential out-of-hours GP services to a large and diverse population.
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