Plan for urgent care centre at Southend Hospital is criticised (From Echo)

Plan for urgent care centre at Southend Hospital is criticised

7:00am Saturday 17th October 2009 in

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HEALTH bosses have been criticised over plans for a new urgent care health centre at Southend-hospital.co.uk" target="_blank">Southend Hospital, rather than closer to people’s homes.

NHS South East Essex briefed councillors on its plans for a new urgent care centre, next to A&E at the hospital, to treat people with non life-threatening conditions.

However, after hearing details of the plans by NHS South East Essex, Southend Council’s community services scrutiny committee raised fears about more people attending the hospital, possibly increasing traffic and parking problems.

Lesley Salter, Tory chairman of the committee said: “Everything in the strategic health authority strategy says patients need to be treated in the community and you are enticing all of those people back into the hospital. It doesn’t make sense.”

Russ Platt, programme manager for NHS South East Essex, conceded there was a risk the new centre could be treated by patients as a GP clinic.

However, he added: “My hope is around educating patients about how best to access our services.”

At the new centre, patients would be seen by a GP and initially assessed within two or three minutes with no examination and then the GP would decide where the patient would be best treated – either in A&E for urgent treatment or by arranging an appointment with their own GP.

The scheme would run on a two-year pilot opening in April 2010.

The new 24-hour unit, also incorporating an out-of-hours GPs service, should be open on April 12 next year, and is designed to stop patients turning up at A&E for ailments which could be treated elsewhere.