After Hours General Practice Care: An Investigation of Patient Access Issues to the Nepean After Hours General Practice Clinic

The Nepean after hours GP clinic was designed to treat patients when their regular GP is not available and to help reduce waiting times in the hospital emergency department. An independent evaluation of patient pre-treatment satisfaction was conducted by researchers from the University of Western Sydney with a custom designed survey. The majority of participants indicated that they were attending the Nepean after hours GP clinic because they had a medical condition that they believed required immediate primary care. Similarly, most participants indicated that they would return to the clinic if they had an urgent medical condition during the clinic’s opening hours. If the after hours clinic was not open, the majority of participants indicated that they would have sought treatment from the hospital’s emergency department.