A GP superpractice has won a three-year contract worth £684,000 to help provide extended access to patients in Yorkshire.
Modality Partnership will work in alliance with a group of seven GP practices in NHS Vale of York CCG to deliver seven-day access to GP appointments in the area.
The service will operate from the premises of two of the Vale of York GP practices, but be available to patients from all seven practices. It will offer appointments between 6:30pm and 8pm on weekday evenings and between 10am and 12pm on weekends and bank holidays.
Under the alliance contracting arrangement, a spokesperson for Modality told Pulse that the local practices based in the Vale of York will staff the service with the management and oversight of Modality.
They said the practices will also have access to Modality’s ‘wider network of staff’ to support the running of the service.
Under the new contract, patients from these surgeries will also be able to access virtual, online consultations at a later date.
Dr Sarah Utting, a GP partner at Tollerton Surgery, said the partnership is ‘a real opportunity to make a positive difference for our patients’.
Vincent Sai, chief executive officer at Modality, added: ‘We also welcome the prospect of sharing our positive learning from our work elsewhere in the country.
‘We plan to showcase a new model of care, which we know will be integral to achieving successful patient outcomes and supporting system-wide benefits.’
Modality, which is based in Birmingham and also runs GP practices in Yorkshire, Hull and the South East of England, recently announced it would be expanding to cover 380,000 patients from September.
This comes after Yorkshire Health Partners, a provider company set up by a federation of 10 GP practices, entered into a £10m five-year contract with neighbouring NHS East Riding of Yorkshire CCG.
CCGs are mandated by NHS England to provide evening and weekend appointments, with all CCGs set to receive £6 per patient to fund the move from next April.
Dr Kevin Smith, the CCG’s executive director of primary care, said: ‘The CCG is delighted that its investment will give even more Vale of York patients access to primary care services in the evenings, at weekends and on bank holidays from early autumn 2018.’
The new appointments will become available from 1 October, for the following seven practices:
- Millfield Surgery
- Tollerton Surgery
- Stillington Surgery
- Pickering Medical Practice
- Helmsley Surgery
- Kirkbymoorside Surgery
- Terrington Surgery
This story was first published on our sister publication Pulse.
