Updated 17 November 2017
In April 2015 Yorkshire Doctors Urgent Care (YDUC) launched a new Integrated Urgent Care Centre (UCC) service and Out-of-Hours (OOHs) service through a contract with the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). They provide an urgent care centre and an OOHs service from York Hospital to approximately 297,000 patients.
YDUC also provide an OOHs service for the Vale of York CCG from the New Selby War Memorial Hospital. YDUC is part of a national organisation, Vocare Limited, which provides urgent care services to 10 million patients across the United Kingdom.
YDUC Maple House is the regional office for Yorkshire Doctors Urgent Care (YDUC). The YDUC regional management, pharmacy and dispatch teams and the Vocare Limited national human resource team are all based at Maple House. The dispatch team monitor the activity of the service across four YDUC locations and ensure that requests for call backs and home visits are dealt with within the required timeframes. They follow up patients who may be vulnerable or at risk that do not attend for appointments, for example children. They also provide ‘comfort calls’ to patients to inform them of any delays with home visits or calls backs.
York – Urgent Care Centre (UCC) provides an urgent care service as part of a pilot with York Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is based in the York hospital accident and emergency (A/E) department. Patients attending the urgent care centre can walk in at any time between 8am & 11pm 365 days a year. They are logged in at the A/E department and then streamed to the most appropriate service. If it is a primary care illness they are directed to UCC - York staff and if it is a minor injury they stay in the Trust system.
The out- of- hours (OOHs) service is also based in the York hospital accident and emergency (A/E) department. The OOHs service is provided from 6.30pm to 8am Monday to Friday and 24 hours throughout Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays. Calls to the OOHs service are handled by the NHS 111 telephone number. Patients are informed whether they will receive a telephone triage by the clinician in YDUC or face to face contact. The calls are passed directly to the YDUC system and appointments are directly booked for patients in the YDUC diary. YDUC operates a triage model where all patients receive clinical telephone assessments. This prevents unnecessary journeys for patients and enables appropriate coordination of home visits and appointments according to clinical urgency and demand.
There is a Local Clinical Director for YDUC Maple House and the UCC – York, and a stable clinical staff team. There is one full time GP and 10 part time GPs who work across the UCC – York and the UCC - Selby. There are two full time and one part time nurses who work across the UCC – York and the UCC – Selby. There are also 67 bank GPs and one bank nurse who work across the UCC – York and the UCC – Selby (bank staff are GPs and nurses who are not employed permanently by YDUC but who are available to work as and when required). All of the clinicians, permanent and bank, will work across all the centres covered by YDUC as and when required.
The service employs a number of both male and female GPs and nursing staff from the local community. The clinicians are supported by an administration / call handling team, receptionists, drivers and a management team who are responsible for the day to day running of the service.
The service supported the training of GP Registrars; doctors who are training to become GPs.