Dave Blackhurst

dave.blackhurst@thesentinel.co.uk

NIGHT and weekend doctor services in North Staffordshire will stay as they are for at least the next year after health officials suspended a long-awaited decision to award a new contract.

The move lifts uncertainty from the 170 GPs, office staff and drivers running the care – but health watchdogs say it smacks of crisis NHS management and undermines stability.

The area's primary care trusts (PCTs) sought tenders for the multi-million pound work last summer and have spent the past nine months interviewing candidates and trying to choose between two short-listed organisations.

But today they blamed the continuing crisis in North Staffordshire emergency care for putting off the decision until after June 2010.

It means the thousands of patients needing to see doctors every week when their own practices are shut will continue to be treated by local GPs from the North Staffordshire Urgent Care co-operative (NSUC) based in a surgery in Basford.

The group, which had been short-listed, will also continue to staff a new department unit close to the accident unit in Hartshill to help tackle marathon delays on trolleys faced by emergency patients.

NSUC chairman Dr Prasad Rao said: "This will allay fears about jobs among our staff in times of economic hardship. But it is only a half-way measure when we would have liked the certainty of carrying on our work for the next three to five years.

"They will be relieved the immediate threat has gone. While the uncertainty has undermined morale, they have been committed and professional enough not to let that affect the quality of the service for patients."

But Alby Walker, chairman of Stoke-on-Trent City Council's health scrutiny committee, said: "Not awarding a contract after all this time smacks of crisis management when we really need stability.

"The University Hospital of North Staffordshire has never got on top of the dreadful problems in A&E despite a number of its representatives coming along to assure us it would soon by sorted."

The decision was initially promised by North Staffordshire PCT in November but then the bidding organisations were asked back to make second presentations as officials struggled to decide.

The trust said that while the out-of-hours service would now be reviewed, the current contract would stay until at least June 2010.

A letter to partners jointly signed by chief executive Tony Bruce and Graham Urwin, his counterpart with NHS Stoke-on-Trent, says: "This was a very difficult decision. But it has been taken in light of the recent extraordinary pressures on urgent and emergency care."

It added that the move had also been influenced by the need to redesign primary care services ready for the opening of North Staffordshire's superhospital which will see 100,000 outpatients being shipped out to community settings.

A PCT spokesman said: "Last winter put pressures on all emergency care systems far greater than anything we have seen in previous years. We believe we can strengthen urgent care provision by looking at ways to complement emergency care services."

What do you think of the decision?