Hackney GPs plan to take control of out of hours care from April

GPs in the London borough of Hackney are setting up a social enterprise to try to take back the running of urgent and out of hours care for their patients from the private company Harmoni.

Hackney Urgent Healthcare Social Enterprise is due to launch on 2 April, when GPs nationally take responsibility for commissioning most patients’ services through clinical commissioning consortiums, as part of the changes introduced by last year’s Health and Social Care Act.

In an announcement to patients about the planned changes for urgent and out of out of hours care in Hackney, the Lawson Practice, part of …