Updated 2 February 2018
Urgent Care Centre, Paulton is the registered location for the GP out-of-hours (OOH) service provided by Vocare Limited based at Paulton Memorial Hospital.
Vocare provides two services within Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES) under a contract with the BaNES Clinical Commissioning Group. The Urgent Care Centre at Royal United Hospital (RUH) Bath is a GP OOH service and urgent care centre and shares the staff and processes with the GP OOH service based at Paulton. It has been inspected separately as it is registered as a separate location with the CQC.
The service covers a population of approximately 540,000 people across the county of Bath and North East Somerset. Deprivation in BaNES overall is lower than the national average and it has relatively low numbers of patients from different cultural backgrounds.
The OOH service based at Paulton works alongside the OOH service and the urgent care centre based at RUH and provides GP services to patients when practices are closed. Patients access the service via the NHS 111 service. If the NHS 111 assessment concludes that the most appropriate course of action is for the patient to be managed by the GP OOH service then NHS 111 schedule an appointment directly into the GP OOH computer system. Patients may also be allocated an appointment for a home visit with a GP or may receive a telephone consultation depending on the clinical needs assessed by NHS 111. The GP OOH service is open from 7pm to 11pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 12am Saturday, Sundays and bank holidays. During the out-of-hours periods where Paulton is not open, overnight cover and support is provided from the RUH service.