SURGERIES in Darlington have implemented several new ways of working in an effort to improve care for patients, following in injection of Government cash.

Primary Healthcare Darlington, the collective name of all 11 GP practices in the town, has been operating since October last year, when it secured almost half a million pounds from the £50m Prime Minister's Challenge Fund.

The cash was awarded following a bid from Darlington GPs committed to finding better ways to deliver primary care and was dependent on the practices establishing a way to work as a collective.

The 11 practices set up a ‘federation’ with the help of North-East medical specialist accountancy firm BW Medical Accountants Limited and a specialist legal team at Ward Hadaway and have gone on to achieve significant benefits and increased funding as a result.

Dr Chris Mathieson has been a GP in Darlington for seven years and sits on the board of Primary Healthcare Darlington as its director of corporate governance, as well as being a practicing GP.

He said: “As an organisation we have been established for almost a year and it has been gratifying that by providing a unified front as a federation of GP practices we’re able to offer Darlington residents a higher level of patient care introducing a number of initiatives to address specific issues.

“Without getting the foundation of what we were doing right, in a such a timely fashion, we would not have been able to secure the Prime Minister's Challenge money and the progress we have made since in terms of improving healthcare services would not have been possible.”

An issue that has received a lot of attention across the country, not just the Darlington region, has been improving patient accessibility to GP appointments.

One of the new initiatives trialled was offering am appointment service over the weekend.

Dr Mathieson explained: "In order to make the best use of resources, we open one centrally-located GP practice, the Denmark Street Surgery, and open from 8am until 2pm.

“What we found was that people were keen to take up this service on a Saturday but that Sunday was not popular.

"So we took the decision to divert all resources into Saturday and this has proved very successful.”

About 70 people get a face to face appointment every Saturday, with 40 or 50 seen by a doctor, the rest by a practice nurse.

A further service includes providing additional GP support on a Sunday morning at Darlington Memorial Hospital, which presents an opportunity to assess patients for early hospital discharge.

Dr Mathieson added: “What you find is that a local GP with an excellent knowledge of the local health economy can often find alternative support for patients at home, freeing up valuable hospital resources such as bed space for those more in need.”

Dr Mathieson estimates that since this service has been put in place about two to three patients a week have been able to be discharged from hospital as a result.