PATIENTS will soon be able to get GP appointments later at night and at weekends under plans to revolutionise local healthcare services.

An “enhanced GP service” is being considered by Southend Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

Patients will be able to pre-book appointments as well as book on the same day at surgeries across Southend, which will open from 8am to 8pm on weekdays and on Saturdays and Sundays.

Appointments will be booked via surgeries, NHS 111 and online. Online consultations are also planned via specialised software.

Patients will have access to a range of health care professionals includes nurse practitioners, mental health therapists, physiotherapists and pharmacists. Appointments will be tailored to ensure the appropriate expertise is available at the time of patients’ appointments

To fund the extra services, NHS England will provide additional funding of £3.34 per head of population increasing to £6 in 2019/20.

A spokesman for Southend CCG said: “NHS Southend CCG is working with local GP surgeries to develop services that meet the needs of patients better. The CCG is providing additional funding to groups of GP practices who will work with their neighbouring practices in order to provide longer opening hours and share staff across the neighbourhood.

“This funding will ensure that each group of practices can employ much needed additional staff so that patients can see the most appropriate person for their condition. For example, a person who wants an appointment for muscle or joint pain could see a physiotherapist at the practice before their GP.

“Other staff, such as mental health therapists for patients who are anxious or pharmacists for patients on multiple medications can all see patients and this will free up GP time. Crucial to this is the role of receptionists and they may ask the reason for the appointment in order to book them in with the most appropriate staff member.”

Dr Haroon Siddique from the Southend Medical Centre, said: “There is already some weekend opening hours in two hubs in town and that’s worked quite well. I believe people would ring in to a central area to be redirected. That would work fine as long as we have the staff to do it.”