Wirral Community NHS Foundation Trust (WCFT) Officers David Hammond, Assistant Director for Partnerships and Strategy and Mark Greatrex, Chief Finance Officer introduced their report that provided information on the Trust’s decision to give notice on its phlebotomy subcontracts with 22 GP surgeries.

The report informed that WCFT had provided phlebotomy services since 2011. The most recent service model, running until 30 June 2018, focused activity for 42 of Wirral’s 51 practices at four hub sites plus appointments at Marine Lake Medical Practice in West Wirral and provision for housebound patients. The hub model was a response to high volumes of activity and a desire to provide an efficient service to minimise waiting times. This service had been contracted with WCFT directly by Wirral CCG.

In 2017, Wirral CCG decided to provide phlebotomy services differently, dividing budgets amongst practices. Since 1 July 2018, with the introduction of a new specification, each practice held an individual contract with Wirral CCG to provide phlebotomy and WCFT’s direct contract with Wirral CCG for phlebotomy services ended at the same time.

The Assistant Director for Partnerships and Strategy informed that waiting times and staffing under the new arrangements had been monitored and actions taken to redeploy staff, but despite this waiting times for appointments were longer than anticipated and had not reduced significantly. The WCFT believed this was not acceptable and had not provided a good service to patients.

The Assistant Director for Partnerships and Strategy further informed that following development of proposals for an alternative model to improve capacity, and agreement (in principle) with 20 of the 22 contracting practices, the new model was presented to the Wirral Primary Care Co-commissioning Committee (PCCC) in January 2019.

Members noted that despite the proposed model not being supported by the PCCC, the WCFT to the decision to serve notice on its contracts to cease services on 30 June 2019, in the belief that without changes to the model, the Trust would net be able to provide a sufficiently high quality of service to patients. 

Members questioned the WCFT Officers, expressing concern over the service, questioning whether patients had been consulted and sought assurances on the adequacy of future services.

The Chief Finance Officer responded, explaining that GP Practices were currently deciding on how they would offer phlebotomy services to their patients from 1 July 2019.

The Assistant Director for Partnerships and Strategy informed that the position was clear as to why the change was required and that 7 models of service delivery were currently in operation.

Members sought reassurance from the WCFT and the Wirral Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) about the future provision of the service and asked if contingency plans were in place. Simon Banks, Wirral CCG informed that both organisations were working together to ensure an acceptable solution could be found, but this also required the co-operation of Wirral’s 2 GP Federations.

Members sought further reassurances concerning staff, noting that the WCFT had placed the dedicated and hardworking phlebotomy staff on redundancy notice.

The Assistant Director for Partnerships and Strategy informed that formal process had commenced, and that the WCFT were keeping staff informed in addition to discussions with GP Practices who may wish to employ phlebotomists from 1 July 2019.

Members requested that they be kept apprised on this matter, and if it were possible to receive information via email. Mr Banks informed that the PCCC would be meeting on (in public) on 14 May 2019.

Resolved – That the report be noted.