HEALTH bosses have moved to reassure people in East Lancashire that they do not hire foreign agency staff to man out-of-hours GP care.

Health watchdog the Care Quality Commission has raised fears of a “national problem” regarding the operation of private GP companies working in England under NHS contracts.

The commission launched a study following the death in February last year of a 70-year-old Cambridgeshire man, David Gray.

Mr Gray died after being given 10 times the normal dose of diamorphine by Dr Daniel Ubani, a German doctor working his first out of hours shift in Britain.

But East Lancashire Medical Services (ELMS), a not-for-profit social enterprise that provides out of hours care to more than half a million people across this region, has said its doctors are all local GPs and 'rigorously' vetted.

Diane Ridgway, interim chief executive of the group, said: “All doctors and nurses working for ELMS are all registered practitioners, who are appropriately trained and qualified and have all the necessary security checks to provide a safe, high quality service.

“The majority of ELMS clinicians work and live in Pennine Lancashire, GPs are on a local PCT performers list and all have a rigorous induction to make sure they understand our requirements, systems and processes.

“Since establishment ELMS has never needed to employ agency staff or recruit overseas.”

Dr Malcolm Ridgway, a GP based at Roman Road Health Centre who leads NHS Blackburn with Darwen's Professional Executive Committee, was involved in setting up a co-operative 15 years ago that later became ELMS.

Designed to help over-worked doctors by sharing the workload of out of hours cover using a rota system, it now employs around half of all the GPs in East Lancashire.

And while it was transformed into a social enterprise in 2004 the former chief executive of the group said its principles have always remained the same.

He said: “We have a good relationship between our GPs and the PCT and we have never needed to bring in agency workers.

“There is still a strong co-operative ethos. What we as GPs don't want is to have a bad service in evenings and at weekends so we have to come in and pick up the pieces.

“We want to have the best possible service at all times.”