Patients in West Lancashire are set to benefit from an integrated, out of hours urgent care service over the coming months.

NHS 111 is able to refer patients to the service from 6.30pm-8am during weekdays and over 24 hours on Saturdays, Sundays and over bank holidays, so that urgent care is available round the clock.

The service is GP-led but now has an integrated clinical team including nurse and paramedic practitioners as well as GPs. Over the next few months, this will be developed in partnership with primary care networks and other partner health services, to make sure that the right skills and services within West Lancashire are incorporated into the out of hours provision.

Michelle Lee, Managing Director of Virgin Care in Lancashire, said: “I’m really pleased that we have this opportunity to start building a service that offers wraparound 24-hour urgent care for people in West Lancashire. We want this to be a truly local service, offering the right mix of health professionals so that patients are seen by the right person at the right time.

“I’m looking forward to seeing the service develop over the coming months as part of our ongoing work to transform adult community services and urgent care for the benefit of people across the district.”

Virgin Care runs urgent care and adult community services on behalf of NHS West Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group. The out of hours service has been brought back in-house after a period of sub-contracting to national provider Vocare, so that the transformation can be carried out.

Dr Peter Gregory, local GP and chair at the CCG said: “Winter typically poses additional pressure on healthcare services as it is when many can become unwell.

"This boosted service will allow appropriate support for people who need care outside of their core GP opening hours for an issue that is not life threatening.”