Newark Hospital’s Urgent Treatment Center (UTC) has been operating with modified hours from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. since March 2020, a change initially prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is not proposed to re-establish overnight Urgent Treatment Centre opening, but to continue to offer 13-hour opening of the Centre.
The proposals will be discussed at the Nottinghamshire Health Scrutiny Committee Meeting on 12 September.
However, Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust plans on running an engagement plan from 4 September to 17 October 2023. This will seek to gather the views of residents and stakeholders on how well current opening hours work for them, whether there are alternative patterns within the proposed 13-hour window of operation which work better for service users, and whether other means of accessing out-of-hours urgent care are delivering in line with expectations.
The hospital acknowledges that these provisional hours have left the community yearning for more predictability and is currently deliberating on what the permanent schedule should be.
Pre-Pandemic Staffing Struggles Persist
Even before the global health crisis, the UTC faced significant challenges in recruiting and retaining overnight staff. The situation was exacerbated by the pandemic, but the root issues remain unresolved, says the Trust.
There were nights when the service had to be closed at very short notice due to a lack of staff.
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Hospital managers express concerns that maintaining an overnight operation would not only be logistically challenging but also an inefficient use of their skilled medical professionals.
A Look at the Numbers
Between April 2019 and May 2023, the UTC has seen over 100,000 visits, with more than 70% of these coming from the Newark area.
This translates to an average of 1,448 monthly visits from patients registered with Newark general practitioners. The centre has not observed a notable uptick in overnight visits to other urgent care facilities or emergency rooms since the change in hours.
In fact, daytime visits have increased, particularly between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., without compromising the centre’s performance against the national four-hour wait time targets.
The Road Ahead
Hospital officials are recommending that the current opening hours remain as they are, citing them as a “safe, sustainable, and effective” solution that aligns with both staffing capabilities and financial resources. They also note that the current operating hours already exceed the NHS England’s national minimum requirement for UTCs, which is at least 12 hours per day.
Seeking Public Viewst
Before finalising any decisions, the hospital is inviting feedback from Newark residents about their experiences with the current UTC hours. They are particularly interested in understanding whether the existing schedule meets community needs or if a different arrangement might be more beneficial.
There is a public survey here:
https://notts.icb.nhs.uk/get-involved/current-and-previous-engagement-consultations/
