Primary care trusts are told to tighten regulation of out of hours services

The government has introduced a raft of measures to make primary care trusts in England more accountable for the out of hours services they commission, including checking doctors’ clinical and language skills, after a review found “totally unacceptable” differences in the way trusts currently implement regulations.

Local GPs should be more involved in the putting in place of arrangements for out of hours services and in developing the induction procedures to check that doctors on call are able to provide the care that patients should expect, said the health minister Mike O’Brien at a press conference to launch the review.

Mr O’Brien accepted all 24 recommendations in the review, which he had commissioned from David Colin-Thomé, national clinical director for primary care at the Department of Health, and Steve Field, chairman of council of the Royal College of General Practitioners. He said, …