REDUCED demand at Northern Ireland's busiest GP Covid Centre has led to some of its doctors returning to their practices.
Beech Hall in west Belfast is the city's designated assessment facility for suspected coronavirus patients and is staffed by medics from across 80 practices.
However, over the past week there has been a reduction in the number of doctors providing cover at the unit - which operates three shifts over a 12 hour period from 8am to 10pm - due to fewer people being referred for appointments.
The focus has instead switched to the community, with a significant increase in visits by Covid centre GPs to vulnerable patients in care homes.
There are a total of 10 GP led Covid centres across the north which are also staffed by nurses and support workers. There is no testing for the virus at the units but medics can admit ill patients to specialist hospitals or wards.
Figures obtained by The Irish News show that Beech Hall staff saw 664 referrals over a fortnight between April 9 and 24.
However, in Derry's Altnagelvin hospital - where its centre is based - there was only 177 suspected cases over the same period.
The Health and Social Care Board confirmed that a total of 2,150 patients had attended the centres during that fortnight - with Beech Hall seeing the most, followed by a Ballymena-based centre which assessed 376 cases.
Concerns have been raised by some medics privately about the units being "over-staffed" for the amount of people they are seeing.
Dr Michael McKenna, who has worked eight shifts at the west Belfast Covid centre over the past five weeks, confirmed they had reduced their labour "very tentatively".
"This week we went down from 10 doctors to seven doctors being on in Beech Hall, there's been a similar type of reductions elsewhere...but the same cover is being provided by multiple doctors from different practices" he said.
"We don't want to pull back too quickly in case it needs to ramped up again.
"Our numbers were very high in the initial weeks and that has slackened off. We've very much moved to increased visiting to the community and mainly in care homes. There's a move to get more care plans drawn up in homes, which means assessing and having a discussion about where is best place to treat if someone was to become seriously unwell. They may want to remain in the home but we still have capacity in hospitals," he said.
"Just because you get Covid, it dosen't mean it's a death sentence, nor should it. That's the message we'd like to get through."
Earlier this month, a leaked letter revealed that the top civil servant at the Department of Health, Richard Pengelly, had warned doctors unwilling to work in Covid facilities that the decision could impact on their GP contracts.
Mr Pengelly issued the correspondence to a "small number of practices" and asked them to "urgently reconsider" their refusal to do shifts - a move that was described as "threatening" by some medics.
