Over 5500 patients were dealt with by NHS Tayside’s out-of-hours service during Christmas and the New Year.
The service, which steps in when GP surgeries are closed, experienced its busiest festive period ever, when practices were closed for four days over Christmas and four days over New Year.
Such was the volume of patients arriving in the late evening and into the night, the service is now considering boosting the level of staff during these periods next year.
Dr Joyce Meikle, medical director of NHS Tayside’s out-of-hours service and a part-time GP at Downfield Surgery in Dundee, said staffing levels were increased up to 9pm over the festive period but “normal” staffing levels for the out-of-hours service were operating after 9pm.
That meant just one GP was on duty overnight for Angus, two in Perth and either one or two in Dundee.
“It has been the busiest Christmas and New Year period we have had so far,” said Dr Meikle, who has led the Tayside service since it was established in 2004.
“Two years ago was pretty busy but this year we are probably 10% higher than that.”
She said a lot of people contacting the service had respiratory infections, coughs and colds and chest infections.
A total of 2607 people contacted the service during the the four-day shutdown over Christmas, when the service experienced its busiest day ever on December 27, helping 854 patients, most of whom attended primary care emergency centres or the network of minor illness and injury units operating across the region.
Monday was the busiest day over the New Year shutdown, slightly behind December 27, with 849 patients contacting the service.
The four-day shutdown over New Year was much busier than the already-busy Christmas shutdown, with a total of 2925 patients contacting the service.Staff praisedWhile the service was exceptionally busy, it did cope and Dr Meikle said that was entirely due to the hard work of the teams on duty.
“All the staff who worked over Christmas and New Year did a great job,” she said.
“They really all worked very hard to get people seen as quickly as possible, and while some people did have to wait within the waiting rooms, we did our best to make that wait as short as possible.”
Dr Meikle said she was looking at “tweaking” the shift system for next year as a result of the latest experience.
“We were busier into the late evenings than we expected. That was consistent over the eight days,” she said.
The national nurse-led telephone service NHS 24, which is the first point of contact when GP surgeries are closed and the gateway to regional out-of-hours services, experienced its busiest ever period.
Calls substantially increased on the Christmas and New Year period last year.
During the four-day Christmas break (December 25 to 28), NHS 24 staff dealt with 44,343 calls (36,073 in 2009/10).
The busiest day of this period was Tuesday, December 28, when the service handled 14,503 calls from across Scotland.
During the four-day New Year break (January 1 to 4), staff received 48,305 calls (38,087 in 2009/10).
The busiest day was the Monday, when the service dealt with 15,044 calls.