Abingdon Federation is Abingdon Surgery, Berinsfield Health Centre, Clifton Hampden Surgery, Long Furlong Medical Centre, Malthouse Surgery and Marcham Road Health Centre. Available HUB appointments can be booked by any patient from these 6 Practices.
The NHS established the GP Access Fund in 2014 to improve access to general practice and stimulate innovative ways of providing primary care services.
Abingdon Federation, through original members Abingdon Surgery and Malthouse Surgery, has been a participant since 2015 and this additional funding allowed them to introduce; Care Navigators to provide health guidance, signpost patients to support groups\organisations and help navigate through the local healthcare system, e-mail consultations providing patients flexible/wider access to their GP from anywhere and develop my-coach.org.uk, a website which offers patients healthcare support and local information/signposting to health and social care in Oxfordshire.
As a an existing GP Access Fund participant, Abingdon Federation has now been offered and taken on the opportunity to be an early adopter of 7 day primary care. This will see us providing additional, wider, more flexible access to primary care appointments for all 6 federation practice patients during evenings and at weekends.
Abingdon Surgery, Berinsfield Health Centre, Clifton Hampden Surgery, Long Furlong Medical Centre and Malthouse Surgery will be working as a collective, with each surgery providing extended hours hub services on different days. The new extended service will provide additional appointments 6pm-8pm each evening, Saturday morning and Sunday morning. Patients will need to book appointments through their own surgery weekdays, even if the appointment is in a different Practice.
These appointments will not replace the current urgent 111 service. If patients require an urgent GP appointment outside of the GP Practice core contract hours of 8am-6.30pm weekdays they will need to call 111. The weekend service is for routine appointments not for emergencies or walk-in appointments.
As is well publicised, primary care faces increasing and unprecedented pressures. Abingdon Federation practices are no different and delivering this new 7 day service will be a challenge. However, working at a larger scale, while staying local to ensure we deliver a service that is focused on our local practice patient needs, we are able to provide this new 7 day service for the benefit of all our patients.