COMPLAINTS from the public have prompted a change to an out-of-hours service covering GP practices in the Dales less than a month after it was introduced.

The North Yorkshire Emergency Doctors (NYED) network was already operating in other parts of the region where GPs had not been dealing with emergencies after normal office hours for some time.

But new government guidelines gave all surgeries the opportunity to opt out after April 1, which led practices in Wensleydale to hand over to NYED.

At the time, health chiefs said they doubted patients would notice the difference.

Calls to GP surgeries would be answered by an automated system, which would provide the NYED switchboard number.

Call-handlers would then take details of each case and pass them to a doctor who would decide if a visit was necessary.

But a number of Wensleydale residents have said they had been told to call an ambulance or make their own way to hospital instead and have challenged health chiefs to meet them at a public forum in Hawes Market Hall at 7pm on Wednesday.

After an emergency meeting with NYED and the Central Dales Practice, in Aysgarth, last week, Chris Long, chief executive of the Hambleton and Richmondshire Primary Care Trust, said he was satisfied all calls dealt with since April 1 had been handled appropriately.

It has since been confirmed that in future, out-of-hours calls to GP surgeries will be routed directly to the NYED switchboard, without patients having to hang up and then call the second number themselves.

Mr Long said: "We recognised there was a nuisance factor for people having to ring the surgery, obtain the number of the out-of-hours service from a recorded message and then having to ring that number.

"I am delighted to report that the whole system will be very much simpler for people who need a doctor during evenings and weekends.

"When they call their usual surgery number, their call will go straight to NYED."

Wensleydale councillor John Blackie, who has highlighted residents' concerns, yesterday welcomed the news.

"It is certainly a move in the right direction, but it was something which was being suggested even before the new system was introduced," he said.

"It has to be asked if this would have happened if people had not expressed their concerns."