NHS Patients

GP Care has multiple contracts with NHS commissioners and delivers a range of community based services that are both efficient and convenient for patients and that deliver cost savings to the NHS. Whilst we also provide a small number of services to patients on a private basis where NHS care is unavailable our real focus is on delivering high quality care to NHS patients.

GP Care currently provides the following services, in association with the NHS, to NHS patients who continue to receive free healthcare:

• Community Audiology (Hearing Aids) Service - A service that provides hearing assessment and hearing aid fittings at convenient community clinic locations for NHS patients aged 60 and over who are suffering from gradual hearing loss.
• Community Arrhythmia Service - A diagnostic service that uses the latest technology in arrhythmia monitoring in the form of ECG Watches to capture traces of any episodes of abnormal heart rhythm without the need for patients to attend hospital.
• Community Hand Surgery Service - A consultant delivered assessment and treatment service for minor hand conditions including: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; Trigger Finger; Dupuytren’s Contracture; and Ganglia (where Exceptional Funding has been approved).  
• Community Urology Service - A diagnostic and assessment services that provides NHS patients with fast access to consultant led urology clinics in convenient community locations. Presenting conditions assessed include Haematuria, Raised PSA, Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms and many other urological symptoms that would otherwise have required patients to go to hospital.
• Community Ultrasound Service - Provision of ultrasound services to NHS patients via a network of community settings such as health centres and specialist clinics using a growing team of expert ultrasonographers with consultant radiologist overview.
• Community Deep Vein Thrombosis ("DVT") Service - Provision of a diagnostic and treatment service for NHS patients with suspected or actual DVTs. The Service, including blood testing, ultrasound scans, and subsequent anticoagulation is delivered from a well spread network of local health centres all of which are very easy to access.
• Consultant Link Advice & Guidance - An innovative service, provided in association with University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, to provide GPs with immediate telephone access to advice & guidance from local specialist consultants, using a paperless telecoms solution that records the telephone call and forwards it to the GP for attachment to the appropriate patient record.
• Patient Record Network ("PRN") Service - A groundbreaking initiative which enables key patient data stored in the local GP patient records to be shared electronically with approved, local NHS doctors in Out of Hours and Secondary Care centres in the region. Access is subject to strict confidentiality criteria including practice authorisation, explicit patient consent and a detailed access audit trail.
• Cancer Awareness Campaign (Blood In Urine) - A campaign to raise the awareness of patients/the public of the significance of visible blood in urine. The objective is to provide patients with a clear and concise message advising of the benefits of being tested, raising awareness that blood in urine can be a symptom of either bladder cancer or kidney cancer, and that early diagnosis can save lives.

GP Care also has a number of other worked-up service models that are available to NHS commissioners, all of which are delivered to high standards of clinical care, from community settings providing for easy patient access, and at significant discounts to National Tariff. For further information please see our list of NHS Patient Services Ready For Deployment.

Our services comprise:

• High quality healthcare - delivered by highly qualified and well respected local NHS consultants, GPs and nurses;
• Efficient service design - minimising the number of patient attendances required via safe and sensible use of 'one-stop' clinics wherever possible;
• Excellent patient access - with services delivered from a network of modern health centres and specialist clinics that:
  • give a good geographical footprint and are therefore 'closer to home' for patients;
  • all have good parking facilities where patients need to drive;
• Prompt reporting to referring GPs - all GP Care services issue a report within 24 hours of an appointment to referring GPs;
• Significant cost savings to NHS commissioners - possible by sharing the cost savings arising from efficient service design;
• Comprehensive reporting to NHS commissioners - performance statistics as well as patient and GP feedback.

We also work closely with:

• GP Practices - who best understand the needs of patients;
• Hospital Trusts - whom we recognise have the necessary equipment and expertise to undertake the complex follow-up procedures that often arise from diagnostic and assessment work;
• District/Community Nursing Teams - who have a broad range of specialist services that can complement GP Care services;
• Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire Cancer Services ("ASWCS") Cancer Network;
• Avon IM&T (the provider of IT services to Avon based NHS commissioners) - who we work with to ensure that GP Care's IT systems integrate where appropriate with wider local NHS IT systems.