Mornington Medical Centre general manager Marian Rillstone said its operating hours would now be from Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

‘‘We will no longer provide an after-hours service.

‘‘We will be closed in the evenings and during weekends and public holidays.’’

Ms Rillstone said things were changing in the after-hours space in Dunedin, after Dunedin Urgent Doctors successfully won a government contract to provide a round-the-clock after-hours service.

‘‘That means our patients now have access to Dunedin Urgent Doctors.

‘‘I think there’s probably mixed feelings on it. I think that the GPs, for them, it’s released them from a significant burden of having to work additional hours after they’ve already worked for a week, and working in unsociable hours, like public holidays, and evenings.’’

Ms Rillstone said despite these changes, patients should still give the centre a call for all urgent matters in the daytime during the week.

‘‘What we’d like to do is encourage patients, wherever possible during the day, to be able to come to still see their own GP at our practice during the day.

‘‘We want to remind patients that we’ve got plenty of on-the-day bookable appointments.’’

Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora Southern group manager for planning and intergration Aroha Metcalf said the new service, run by Dunedin Urgent Doctors, would open on Wednesday.

‘‘Health New Zealand understands the new service will have implications for other providers and expects individual general practices to make their own decisions about after-hours service provision.

‘‘Health New Zealand is confident the service will be able to meet demand. It will operate around the clock and be supported by a multidisciplinary clinical team, with access to diagnostics, pharmacy, and radiology. Health New Zealand will meet regularly with the provider to monitor demand and service performance.’’

Dunedin Urgent Doctors general manager Adam O’Byrne said there had been significant modelling and negotiations done in partnership with HNZ in the months leading up to the start of this new contract.

‘‘As with any new and major change such as this, there are operational and resource pressures.

‘‘We must find the staff to ensure we can offer the 24/7 service in a clinically safe manner in a very constrained environment and that has been our focus.’’ The service had also partnered with Emergency Consult, which was a telehealth service designed for urgent and episodic care with senior ED doctors on hand to support nursing and paramedic staff overnight, between 10pm and 8am.

* An earlier version of this article contained inaccuracies for which we sincerely apologise.

matthew.littlewood@odt.co.nz

Original source: nz