To ask the Minister of Health for his assessment of the merits of introducing an out-of-hours GP service at Antrim Area Hospital.

Co-locating GP Out of Hours services with a major Emergency Department offers a number of strategic and clinical advantages:

1. Workforce resilience: the number of medical personnel present is significantly greater. A challenge for GP Out of Hours (GP OOH) services has been a the relatively small number of medical personnel available at any single site, with a risk that if a GP has to attend a patient's home, the GP OOH facility may be left unattended for a period. Cross cover is possible through co-location.

2. Increasing disease complexity is a feature of modern medical practice and feedback from GP representatives indicates that they are increasingly reliant on specialist advice as a result of multimorbidity amongst the older population, advances in diagnostic technology and pharmacology. Co-location benefits patients by making this specialist advice readily available.

3. Co-location offers the opportunity for patients to report their symptoms once only whether their need is for GP advice or GP and specialist input.

4. Co-location of GP OOH services with Emergency Departments, will allow patients who require admission to hospital to avoid the discomfort of additional travel and further waiting time.

5. The Urgent and Emergency Care Review (REVIEW OF URGENT AND EMERGENCY CARE SERVICES IN NORTHERN IRELAND (health-ni.gov.uk)) has proposed the establishment of a new integrated urgent and emergency care model, across all provider organisations. It is envisaged that service users will be able to access care through a single telephone number. This development will enable triage of patient symptoms and referral, if required, to the correct medical service (GP or specialist) without having to attend a GP followed by a specialist consultation at a separate site.