Recovery plans to ease pressure at Shropdoc
Recovery plans has been put in place to help ease pressure at Shropshire’s out-of-hours GP service.
Shropdoc is currently facing a number of pressures, including on its finances. Yesterday it was announced that six redundancies may have to be made.
However Russell Muirhead, chairman of Shropdoc, said they would be looking at all options and would be doing everything possible to avoid redundancies, but they could not be ruled out.
A period of individual consultation is due to begin shortly with those employees whose jobs are at risk.
If redundancies are made, the number expected is around six, a total of under two per cent of the workforce, as well as variations to work patterns and roles for around seven staff.
Mr Muirhead said the service would not be embarking on redundancies unless it was totally necessary to ensure the smooth and continued running of the business.
He said: “A number of factors have influenced the decision to create the plan, which includes proposed staffing reductions, which do not affect patient services.
“Historic factors include an increasing workload; patient volumes and complexity/frailty, a reduction in GP availability, limited primary care nurse pool to recruit from, no significant out of hours (OOH) contract value increase since 2004 and increased indemnity and operating costs.
“The service has actively sought to introduce measures to narrow the gap between contract income and expenditure including introducing a much tighter expenses and expenditure process to ensure every request is justifiable and represents good value for money.”
Shropdoc, which is made up of 270 GP members from Shropshire and Powys, was recently rated as the best in England.
Inspectors from Care Quality Commission (CQC) rated the provider as outstanding.
The public body It judged the service, which has a patient population of over half a million people in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin and Powys, as outstanding in the areas of leadership, care and responsiveness for its patients.
It means Shropdoc is just the second provider of out of hours services in England to receive an outstanding rating.
