Extended hours DES update

The 2017/18 changes to the GP contract included the condition that meant practices who regularly close for a half day, on a weekly basis, will not ordinarily qualify to deliver the Extended Hours DES.

The contract was not specific on what ‘open’ means. Ros Roughton, NHS England’s Director of NHS Commissioning told MPs on 10 March her view was that services which met the level of ‘reasonable needs’ of patients were:

“...[as a patient] you should be able to phone your practice and book an appointment, pick up a prescription, drop off a specimen. If results come into the practice that require urgent attention there should be someone there to pick that up...”

Londonwide LMCs has further discussed this with NHS England and conclude that in order to satisfy the requirements of being 'open' and qualify to deliver the Extended Hours DES, practices should ensure that:

the practice door should be open during core hours, ie, 8:00am-6:30pm
a receptionist should be on duty
the telephone should be answered by a person in the practice
as a minimum, the patient should be able to book appointments at reception or by phone, collect and drop in repeat prescription requests/insurance forms/specimens and ask about test results
a doctor should be contactable for urgent advice. This does not necessarily mean that the doctor must be at the practice premises but that he/she must be contactable to provide the patient with urgent advice. The clinical decision may be to advise the patient on appropriate management of their condition, and to determine when and where the patient should be appropriately seen

As was originally agreed between NHS England and the General Practitioners Committee, if a practice wants to participate in the extended hours DES but felt it necessary to close for half a day, their case would be looked at on its own merits, eg, a branch practice may not need to be kept open.

If you have any queries about this, please contact gpsupport@lmc.org.uk.

Last updated : 24 Oct 2017

Data sharing agreement checklist and guidance for practices (21 Aug 2019)

Londonwide LMCS is aware of the increasing complexity and number of information and data sharing agreements (DSAs) and documents which practices are receiving to review and sign. To support practices,...

New CQC guidance section for practices (20 Aug 2019)

In the past 12 months CQC have visited nearly 400 practices in London and found that: 3 were considered outstanding, 300 were considered ‘good’, 57 required improvement, and 23...

Bowel screening update – August 2019 (20 Aug 2019)

NHS England have provided an information sheet to explain the introduction of the faecal immunochemical test (FIT). This replaced the guaiac faecal occult blood test (gFOBt) at the start of...

Tackling social isolation and loneliness to improve health (20 Aug 2019)

Colin Brown, UK Director for Independent Living & Crisis Response at British Red Cross looks at how their expertise will be of use to social prescribing link workers, as they...

Primary care buddying system (20 Aug 2019)

The NHS London Leadership Academy is working with primary care providers to support development in the sector, and to facilitate wider working across the health and social care system. They...

Vaccination update August 2019 (20 Aug 2019)

Hepatitis B in at risk babies Babies born to mothers infected with hepatitis B require a course of hep B vaccination. The first dose is given within 24 hours in...

Londonwide LMCs’ support for Primary Care Network Clinical Directors (20 Aug 2019)

The introduction of the PCN DES means significant changes in the way practices deliver some existing services, and the rolling out of a new range of services. Londonwide LMCs is...

Safeguarding payments and collaborative arrangements (15 Aug 2019)

On 11 July 2019 Dr David Geddes, NHSE/I Director of Primary Care Commissioning, wrote to CCGs and STPs advising that payment for safeguarding activity is not covered by core NHS...

Tips of the month August 2019 (15 Aug 2019)

We provide weekly tips based on common queries which come through to us from London GPs and practice teams. These are shared via social media and collated for...