A NEW pilot scheme in part of the county will see paramedics make home visits to take the pressure off GP surgeries.

The scheme will start next month and last a year and a half.

Paramedics will undertake a mix of emergency call-outs and home visits in Mid Sussex, Horsham and Crawley.

Some medical professionals have raised concerns about the training and expertise that is required for paramedics to successfully carry out their new role.

Geraldine Hoban, managing director for the region’s clinical commissioning groups, said: “We are very excited about the paramedic practitioner rotational pilot as it will offer some of our most frail patients a more rapid home visiting response than general practice currently has the capacity to provide. We anticipate that will enable more patients to have their urgent care needs met in or closer to home.

“The pilot also represents the strategic approach we are taking in this area to exploring creative workforce solutions.”

Managers of the scheme suggest it will allow paramedics to get to patients quicker than GPs, who are currently facing high demand from patients.

The scheme has already been trialled in other parts of the country, including in Sheppey, Kent, which ended in March last year.

There paramedics undertook specialist training courses and worked for GPs in primary care services.

South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb), which will be involved in the pilot scheme in Sussex, admitted the trial in Kent affected its ability to have enough staff in place to support its core services.

Secamb was placed in special measures after being rated inadequate by Care Quality Commission inspectors in 2016.

Inspectors found the service was putting patients at risk by abandoning telephone calls.

The inspectors highlighted concerns over the trust’s failure to reach national response targets and a reduction in calls answered, especially at weekends.

The trust also failed to achieve national performance targets for high priority calls and struggled to answer enough 999 calls within five seconds.

A Secamb spokesman said: “We’re at the early stages of this and still recruiting to the role.

“The Sussex pilot follows work with partners to look at sustainable workforce solutions which do not benefit one part of the system at the expense of another.

“We are?hopeful that this wider system approach will prove more sustainable.”