The Trust wishes to trial the operation of an Urgent Care Centre (UCC) on the St. Peters site for a period of up to 18 months up until the 31.3.2017, Our vision is for the UCC to reduce substantially the current activity within our Emergency Department (ED), so that the ED is able to concentrate on the most acute patients thus improving the experience of both patients and staff.
The UCC will be located opposite the current Emergency Department (ED) on the St Peter's site.
The UCC will operate between eighteen and twenty four hours, seven days a week, 365 days per year and will share a single reception with the ED. The UCC will act as a single point of access to on-site emergency and urgent care services for walk-in patients. It is expected that the UCC will integrate with current service provision but will develop the distinctive culture and approach of a primary care service, with experienced and appropriately skilled primary care clinicians leading the service, working alongside other healthcare professionals undertaking assessments and seeing and treating patients.
Service providers of the UCC and the ED will be required to work together to ensure fully integrated and seamless care pathways. There will be clear lines of responsibility and accountability, both within and between provider organisations, ensuring handovers of care between providers are fully defined — but seamless to the patient. It is expected that the UCC will not duplicate support services — for example it will have access to the diagnostics and investigations run by the Trust from the hospital site and will not duplicate reception staff.
In this UCC model, the service will not constitute a further access point for routine NHS care in the health economy; neither will it allow duplication of existing services. Patients attending the UCC with routine or out of hours primary care needs will be appropriately and actively navigated back into core primary / community services.
The UCC will see approximately 40 000-50 000 patients per year.
Estimated cost excluding VAT: Range: between 1 800 000 GBP and 2 600 000 GBP per annum, hence for an 18 month pilot 2 700 000 GBP to 3 900 000 GBP.