Walk-in centre is cut back

Integrated Care Centre

OLDHAM’S flagship walk-in centre is to close its doors to overnight drop-in patients in a move which will save over half a million pounds a year.

The facility, at the Urgent Care Centre (on the ground floor of Oldham Integrated Care Centre), will close its doors between 11pm and 7am from December 1.

The walk-in centre has been open 24-hours-a-day for the last 12 months and shares the ground floor of the building with out-of-hours service Go To Doc.

Run by NHS Oldham, it costs £44,000 a month to keep the walk-in centre open during the night, a total of £528,000 a year.

However, NHS Oldham said an average of four people a night were using it for minor issues such as skin conditions and infections, and the service was not meeting patients’ needs.

From December 1, anyone needing care after 11pm can still call Go To Doc who will assess them and decide on the best treatment.

The public can continue to walk in, without an appointment, to see a doctor from 7am to 11pm.

NHS Oldham’s board members yesterday agreed to the changes.

They also approved merging services at the Urgent Care Centre to make them more streamlined for patients and establishing just one reception for patients to either drop-in or book an appointment with a doctor.

Gail Richards, chief executive, said: “People have told us that when they go in to the urgent care centre it’s confusing. We want to change this. We also want to make sure we’re providing the services people need at the times and in the places they need them, and that we’re not paying for services which people don’t want.”

NHS Oldham is currently clawing back savings to avoid a potential £17 million deficit at the end of the financial year (March, 2011).

It has has already saved more than £11 million since April through measures including reducing management costs by £750,000, freezing recruitment, reducing hospital follow-up appointments and limiting some NHS procedures.