PATIENTS in Darlington who find it difficult to get appointments to see a GP are to benefit from a new pilot scheme launched in the town this weekend.

As part of national efforts to improve patient access to GPs, family doctors in Darlington have agreed to hold additional pre-bookable routine clinics on Saturdays and Sundays from 8am to 2pm.

The clinics will be held in an annexe to the Denmark Street medical centre and will be open to patients from all 11 Darlington GP practices.

Funded by the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund, the pilot scheme aims to assess demand and whether patients are willing to be seen by a GP other than their usual family doctor.

GPs in Darlington are also planning an evening telephone advice service which will operate on Monday to Friday evenings between 6pm and 10pm and be accessible via the 111 NHS urgent care helpline.

The new weekend clinics have been made possible by a combination of additional Government funding and by the decision of all 11 practices to set up a new company called Primary Healthcare Darlington to provide a number of projects linked to the Challenge Fund.

It allows practices to work together to pool resources, clinical expertise and to provide new services for patients.

Darlington GP Dr Jenny Steel, who is also the lead doctor in the new company, said the scheme was a response to the Prime Minister’s challenge to find new ways of improving access for patients.

She said it would be “unworkable” to try to stay open from 8am to 8pm seven days a week because of the number of GPs in Darlington.

But after winning £448,000 from the Challenge Fund to transform GP services and improve the patient experience, the Darlington GPs came up with the scheme to hold extra routine clinics at weekends and an evening telephone advice service.

Dr Steel stressed that the new weekend clinics were not designed to take urgent medical cases.

Urgent out-of-hours medical problems should continue to be dealt with via the 111 NHS advice service in combination with the town’s Urgent Care Centre, she added.

The weekend clinic scheme is due to last until March next year, when it will be evaluated as part of the pilot scheme.