Agreement over new out of hours GP service for Shropshire

The group which will run the service is a partnership between Shropshire Community Healthcare NHS Trust (Shropcom) and Shropshire Doctors Co-operative Ltd, (Shropdoc).

The contract for the service, which has been provided by Shropdoc on its own until now, will begin from October 1.

The organisation's current contract ends on September 30.

Dr Russell Muirhead, Chairman at Shropdoc, said: “We are delighted with the outcome of the tender process. With our passion for delivering high quality patient care in the community setting we are excited at the opportunity to now develop our partnership with Shropcom and work with the commissioners to improve urgent care service design and delivery, ensuring the best use of resources for our patients.”

The partnership was selected after a tender process run by Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin clinical commissioning groups.

David Evans, chief officer at Telford & Wrekin CCG, said: “Following an open and competitive tendering process we are delighted to be able to appoint Shropshire Community Healthcare NHS Trust who will be working in partnership with Shropdoc to meet the nationally mandated requirement for to provide out of hours care.

“We are confident this will provide our patients with the advantages of genuinely joined-up care for anyone in need of urgent but non-emergency care and advice, delivered by a team with many years of local knowledge and experience.”

Dr Julian Povey, chair of Shropshire CCG, said: “We are delighted that two local providers have come together to deliver this important service for our local community and we are looking forward to an exciting future with Shropdoc and Shropcom working together.”

Jan Ditheridge, chief executive of Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, said: “This is a great outcome for people in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.

“It is also an exciting opportunity for our organisation – working in a new way, preparing the ground for future developments, building on the local expertise, reputation and relationships we already have for delivering care out of hours and in our communities.

“This joint working relationship will provide stability, preserving what is good about our out of hours services while providing greater opportunity for quality improvements, job and career pathway developments for our staff, and better outcomes for patients and their families.

“Both organisations already have a track record of working in partnership with the other, health care and voluntary sector organisations in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin, and expect this will only strengthen those ties, reducing duplication and handovers for patients.”