New evening and weekend GP service for St Albans (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

New evening and weekend GP service for St Albans

2:17pm Monday 20th April 2009

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A NEW GP service offering appointments up to 8pm and at weekends will be serving St Albans people in little over a month.

The West Hertfordshire Primary care Trust has signed a five-year deal with Herts Urgent Care, a non-profit-making enterprise run by local GPs and patient representatives which currently provides out-of-hours GP and emergency dental services to the whole county.

The new GP-led health centre is set to open its doors at Hemel Hempstead Hospital on  June 1 offering bookable appointments and a walk-in service, 8am to 8pm, seven days a week.

Patients can also switch from their current surgeries to register with the centre if they like.

Mark Cockerton, chief executive of Herts Urgent Care, said: “We expect that the centre will be popular with those who find difficulty in accessing a GP during traditional opening hours.”

The PCT's director of primary care Andrew Parker said: “We are very pleased that after months of planning we have now formally signed the contracts for the West Herts Medical Centre - which is what the new centre will be known as. It is now full steam ahead to get the centre up and running."

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