24-hour urgentNews care plan scrapped

PROPOSALS for a 24-hour urgent care centre for North Tyneside look to have been scrapped by health bosses.

Last October, NHS North Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) decided to close three walkin centres and replace them with one 24-hour facility.

But now they have unveiled plans for the new centre to open from 8am to 10pm only, with a home visiting service to operate out of hours.

In October 2016 the CCG decided to close the walk-in centres at Battle Hill, North Tyneside General Hospital (Rake Lane) and Shiremoor Paediatric Minor Injuries Unit and provide a 24-hour urgent care service at a single site. After a consultation, Rake Lane was decided as the preferred location for the new service.

But in December overnight urgent care services were suspended at Rake Lane – along with Wansbeck and Hexham hospitals – as an “essential temporary measure” during the winter months. Instead the opening times have been 8am to midnight, seven days a week, with staff redeployed to the Northumbria Emergency Care Hospital at Cramlington. Now the CCG says it has seen “no adverse effect on patient care” as a result of night-time opening being suspended for nine months. It is now proposing that the new urgent care centre should open from 8am to 10pm, with a home visiting service operating during the out-of-hours period. These changes would come into effect from October 1, 2018.

The CCG claims that before the suspension of overnight care in December 2016, the urgent care service at Rake Lane was only used by an average of three to four patients per night, two thirds of whom required little or no medical treatment.

Dr John Matthews, a local GP and chairman of North Tyneside CCG, said: “We continue to believe that a single urgent care centre is the way forward, but some elements of our thinking have changed, so we want to hear local people’s views before making any changes. The reality is that you could count the patients using the Rake Lane walk-in service at night on the fingers of one hand. The listening period runs from October 23 to November 17. Visit www.northtynesideccg.nhs.uk or call 0191 217 2803 if you need a paper copy.