General Practice appointments out of hours
Dear resident,
Your GP practice is part of a small group of practices called a Primary Care Network. This group of practices works together in a number of ways.
From October, Primary Care Networks will be responsible for providing ‘enhanced access’ for their patients. GP practices usually have core opening hours of 8am – 6.30pm on weekdays. ‘Enhanced access’ means being able to access GP services (primary care) outside of these core opening hours - so on evenings, weekends and bank holidays.
Enhanced access services are currently available for all our residents in North Central London (this includes the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington). You may already have used these services either at your own practice or at another practice or healthcare site.
What’s changing from October is that Primary Care Networks will become responsible for providing most of these enhanced access appointments for their patients. This is a national change that is happening across the country.
In North Central London, there will be no reduction in the overall amount of primary care appointments available for people across the week and on bank holidays as a result of these changes. However, there may be changes in the way that you access these appointments – for example, how you book them and where you might go to be seen. So we want to know what’s important to you, and your experience of using these services previously. This will help our Primary Care Networks to make their plans.
How will the results be used?
The Clinical Commissioning Group will collect the results and share them with the right Primary Care Network to inform planning. All results will be anonymous.
Yours faithfully
