The weekend care home service was launched at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to help improve out of hours support to care homes.

It has proven to be very helpful to care homes and nursing homes across East Sussex. This is locally commissioned service, and several practices have chosen to subcontract to SDHC. 

• This is an entirely remote service which operates every weekend from 8am to 1pm or 8am to 6pm on every day of a Bank Holiday weekends.
• Each home has a 'check in' consisting of proactive calls to see if there are any problems and a reactive service where a GP can be telephoned for advice.

Qualitative feedback from Care Homes and Nursing Homes via direct feedback to SDHC collected in June 2023 found the following:

• 89% of responding care homes highly valuing the service provided.
• 90% of care homes find the proactive care approach extremely useful.
• Care homes appreciated the promptness of the service.
• The GP’s availability and responsiveness were praised, eliminating the need for homes to contact their own GP practice on Monday mornings.
• The proactive callers received compliments for their friendly approachable manner.
• 91% of care homes said that this service prevents calls to 111 made by them.
• 77% of care homes said that this service prevents calls to 999 made by them.

Data collected from the Care Home Service has demonstrated that inappropriate attendance at A&E, and unplanned hospital admissions are reduced in homes with access to out of hours GP cover, providing benefits to both the care home resident and the healthcare system.