Out-of-hours visits in a group practice

In one year 1644 out-of-hours calls were undertaken by a partnership of eight doctors working in a deprived inner urban area and a deprived large council housing estate; of these calls 332 were performed between the hours of 11 pm and 7 am. The number of calls required in the housing estate, 1077, was about twice as many as in the inner urban area, although the same doctors were using the same criteria for a visit. The rate of visits of 107 per 1000 patients in the housing estate was much higher than in other published series. The reasons for this difference appeared to be related to the comparative youth of parents and the number of young children.