[Locations, facilities and routines in Norwegian out-of-hours emergency primary health care services].

BACKGROUND: Limited data are available on casualty clinic facilities and localisation, inter-municipal co-operation and routines for out-of-hours services in the 433 Norwegian municipalities. The National centre for emergency primary health care collected data on these issues from October 2005 until February 2006.

METHOD: Questionnaires concerning organisation of the out-of-hours services, casualty clinic facilities, locations and routines were sent to every Norwegian municipality.

RESULTS: 282 of the 433 municipalities are in charge of out-of-hours services in 262 districts in the evenings and 230 districts during nights and weekends. There is inter-municipal cooperation in 100 of the districts. Most out-of-hours services are located in one casualty clinic in the host municipality and have the same locations as GP surgeries and laboratories. Most clinics offered the same services, but some routines were different. About half of the casualty clinics had a system for training of doctors and other health personnel. Half of the doctors on duty were available on the emergency communications system (radio). User assessments were collected, telephone calls documented and discrepancies reported to a varying degree, and medical histories were not consistently sent to regular GPs.

INTERPRETATION: Inter-municipal co-operations are most common in areas with a high population density, i.e. in southern and eastern parts of Norway. Varying routines in out-of-hours service districts indicate that several municipalities do not fulfil all the obligations in regulations from the Ministry of health and care services in Norway.