NHS plans two-tier GP service amid crisis: How ‘hot hubs’ will be used for patients with coronavirus symptoms while ‘cold hubs’ will treat the rest
- Clinical Commissioning Group in Sussex among those setting out precautions
- It has ordered each local primary care network to set up both ‘hot and cold hubs’
- This will allow patients both with and without the virus to be seen separately
- UK yesterday saw its biggest day-on-day rise in deaths since the outbreak began
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
NHS Trusts around the country are preparing for a wave of new infections to spread into rural parts of the UK over the next two weeks.
The Clinical Commissioning Group in Sussex is among those setting out new precautions after the UK yesterday saw its biggest day-on-day rise in deaths since the Covid-19 outbreak began.
The CCG has ordered each local primary care network – doctor’s surgeries – to set up both ‘hot and cold hubs’.
NHS Trusts around the country are preparing for a wave of new infections to spread into rural parts of the UK over the next two weeks. Pictured: Health Centre in Islington, London
Hot hubs will be used exclusively by coronavirus patients who doctors have decided need further attention following an initial telephone conversation.
GPs will then be able to carry out further tests, including oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, pulse and temperature, to work out which patients need to be taken to hospital for ventilation and which should remain at home.
Cold hubs will therefore be for all patients with normal ailments and prescriptions who are free of the virus and have not been in contact with any Covid-19 sufferers.
But it is thought that the local care network, which generally consist of around seven practices, 25 doctors and 40,000 patients, may not be able to cope.
Single practices will not be big enough to split into hot and cold hubs as they rarely have two distinct entrances unlike purpose built field hospitals. Pictured: Contractors build the Nightingale Hospital at the Excel in London
The precautions comes after a total of 759 people have now died in UK hospitals after being diagnosed with coronavirus with more than 14,500 confirmed cases
Single practices will not be big enough to split into hot and cold hubs as they rarely have two distinct entrances that would allow to prevent the spread of infection.
It is also thought that GPs may not have the expertise in diagnosing patients with the virus nor do they have the time, money or personal protective equipment such as visors to keep themselves safe.
Speaking to Charles Moore at the Telegraph, Dr Camilla Pashley, the GPs’ spokesman, said care would need to merge the arrangements in hours with that provided out of hours but the CCG orders make no allowance for this.
She said: ‘If you cannot do your job, you naturally want to resign but of course I won’t.’
The government announced yesterday that NHS staff would be tested from next week after hospital bosses reported a 50 per cent staff absence rate as many self isolated after showing symptoms. Pictured: Drive-thru testing built at Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey
A total of 759 people have now died in UK hospitals after being diagnosed with coronavirus with more than 14,500 confirmed cases.
But the government also announced that NHS staff would be tested from next week after hospital bosses reported a 50 per cent staff absence rate as many self isolated after showing symptoms.
More than 18,000 doctors, nurses and other former NHS staff have volunteered to return to work to fight the virus.
The en masse effort came after NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens was forced to defend his track record heading the service after the country’s proportion of intensive care units before the crisis among the lowest in Europe.