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Search forWalk-in GP services start this year in Derby and Ilkeston
Thursday, October 02, 2008, 08:30
Derby's new service will be launched from the existing NHS walk-in centre, off Osmaston Road, in December, and could be run by a company called One Medicare.
Then in June, Derby City Primary Care Trust hopes to move the service to a purpose-built new clinic attached to Lister House Surgery, in Harrington Street.
A second centre will open in Ilkeston next spring, although a location has not been announced. Derbyshire County Primary Care Trust has chosen a firm called Integral Healthcare Partnership to run it.
Earlier this year, the Evening Telegraph revealed that three GP walk-in centres are planned for Derbyshire. Patients will be able to see a doctor without registering or making an appointment, from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week.
Details for the third centre, in Chesterfield, are still to be announced.
The Government wants every area of England to have at least one GP walk-in centre by March but Derby City Primary Care Trust aims to be one of the first when it launches in December.
A spokesman for the trust said: "The GP-led health centre will deliver services to registered and non-registered patients. It will offer bookable and open access appointments and will serve the most deprived areas of the city."
The Ilkeston centre will also offer weight-management services to combat rising levels of obesity.
Patients have welcomed the announcements.
June Lower, chairwoman of the patients' participation group at Hema Medical Centre, Alvaston, said: "These GP walk-in centres will be great for one-off emergencies, such as an infection that needs antibiotics or a child with a high temperature, and could take the pressure off accident and emergency departments.
"But it's important that people don't see them as a replacement for their local GP, who will be familiar with their medical history."
However, GPs have criticised the move to allow private healthcare companies to run the new services.
John Grenville, secretary of Derbyshire Local Medical Committee and a GP at Macklin Street Surgery in Derby, has already been involved in a national protest by GPs against the new walk-in centres.
He said: "As we feared, two private companies have been earmarked to run the services in Derbyshire, and neither company has the local knowledge that patients need.
"I am also concerned about the location of the Derby centre. It would have been better in the north-west of the city, where a lot of new homes are being built."
INSTANT ACCESS: Far left, the NHS centre, off Osmaston Road, Derby, where the GP walk-in service will begin in December and, left, Lister House Surgery, where it is planned to move to next year
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