Plans to send GPs on Shropshire 999 callouts to reduce numbers being taken to hospital

County health officials say they are working with ambulance bosses on the proposal in the hope it will reduce the number of patients being taken to hospital.

It comes after a 'Physician Response Unit' was shut down due to two serious incidents which happened during a trial.

The trial was launched in Shropshire in July last year to reduce the number of ambulances queuing outside the region's hospitals.

West Midlands Ambulance Service has repeatedly highlighted the difficulties it faces in covering rural Shropshire, due to the size of the county, and the wait outside A&Es to transfer patients.

The Physician Response Unit was an ambulance car, based in Shrewsbury, which had a GP trained in pre-hospital medicine on-board.

They were dispatched after a 999 call.

The service was funded by Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) as part of steps to alleviate pressures on both hospitals and the ambulance service.

Dr Julie Davies, Shropshire CCG director of strategy and service redesign, said: "We have had to go through a very challenging process with the members of staff involved in the unit so we wanted to inform them first.

"We are meeting with the doctors next week as we have to de-commission that service. We are working to create a secondary response service in replacement which will be worked up in the autumn and ready for the winter."

Mark Docherty, WMAS director of clinical commissioning, previously said: "WMAS agreed to run a two-month long trial which took place at the end of the summer. During that period, two potential 'serious incidents' were raised by medics at other organisations about the actions of the doctors involved in the scheme.

"These were formally investigated and the reports provided to the CCG. The scheme was set up to look at how GPs could work with the ambulance service to reduce the number of patients being conveyed to hospital.

"The scheme was meant to focus on urgent primary care needs rather than a blue light response for an emergency and as such was not as successful as had been hoped.

"However, West Midlands Ambulance Service is committed to schemes that will reduce the number of patients being taken to hospital.

"As such, we have proposed that a GP scheme similar to one that has been running successfully in Worcestershire for four years, without clinical incident, is implemented in Shropshire."