PROPOSALS to axe walk-in facilities at five health centres across Wirral were met with outrage last year, as more than 30,000 people called for them to be scrapped.

If the Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) plans go ahead, the walk-in facilities at Eastham Clinic, Victoria Central in Wallasey, Miriam Medical Centre in Birkenhead, Parkfield Medical Centre in New Ferry and Moreton Health Clinic will all be closed.

While the walk-ins would be axed, the buildings’ other operations would remain unaffected.

The move would see services moved to Arrowe Park Hospital in the form of an Urgent Treatment Centre, but the CCG has since stressed more GP appointments and “closer to home” care will be introduced, as well as number of other initiatives including ‘health and well-being centres’ across Wirral.

The Urgent Care Consultation was subject to multiple petitions, with more than 32,000 people – a fifth of Wirral’s adult population – said to have voiced their opposition.

It ran between September and December last year, but since then, there has been little explanation of what happens next, or when the results will be announced.

On Tuesday afternoon, Simon Banks, chief officer of Wirral Health and Care Commissioning (WHaCC), a partnership between the CCG and the council, revealed a crucial update about when the borough’s residents will be told the future of the services.

A ‘final recommendation’ by WHaCC will be published next month, and subsequently decided on by the CCG.

From there, a number of meetings will then take place and decisions made, before the council’s joint scrutiny committee make their own recommendation to the cabinet later this year.

Mr Banks said: “During the consultation period, we gathered the views of people across Wirral and held many public engagement events which gave us the opportunity to talk through our proposals.

“The information gathered during the consultation was independently analysed and the resulting report provides a comprehensive summary of what people and stakeholders have said.

“We have spent the first part of 2019 looking at what people have said as well as looking at other evidence before making decisions on the future of urgent care in Wirral.”

The ‘final recommendation’ will be presented to the CCG’s governing body on July 9 at a public meeting at Birkenhead Town Hall, with the papers published on June 24.

The process will also involve a joint-scrutiny committee meeting of Wirral Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council, to allow the committee to also make any final comments or recommendations.

Mr Banks added: “We want to thank everyone who contributed to the consultation and provided their views on our proposals.”

What else was in the Urgent Care proposals?

  • As above, walk-in facilities at Eastham, Victoria, Miriam, Parkfield and Moreton would go, but other services at these centres will NOT be affected.
  • Arrowe Park Hospital’s walk-in centre would be transformed into a Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC), which could open 15 or 24 hours a day, depending on public responses.
  • There will not be any changes in how people access their usual GP services, but patients will have access to bookable urgent appointments with either a GP or nurse within 24 hours (mostly on the same day), if their own GP practice is unable to provide an appointment. The CCG believes this will improve access, as patients won’t have to wait for “unspecified amounts of time like they do currently”, but can fit them in around their day. The CCG is already providing an extra 700 GP appointments each week, with more set to come.
  • A dedicated urgent care service for young people aged 0-19 is also proposed as well as a bookable dressings (wound care) service within four local areas across Wirral. The locations for these will be decided at a “later date”.
  • The CCG says its “vision” is to introduce four health and well-being centres across Wirral where there are more services in a “location recognised and valued by the people who use them”. Staff would work together in neighbourhood teams, and would include NHS employees and staff from social care, therapies and charitable and voluntary organisations.
  • The NHS 111 service is set to improve and offer more assessments by doctors and nurses over the phone and online. The CCG said for many, this will be the only contact they need.

Why was the consultation carried out?

The CCG said one of the biggest reasons for the changes are down to confusion caused by the current system, revealed in a public “listening exercise” last year.

It’s also to ease pressure on Arrowe Park Hospital’s overstretched A&E service. The CCG said almost half of patients who attended the department last year had an illness or injury that could have been treated elsewhere.

What exactly is an Urgent Treatment Centre?

According to the CCG, this is a national requirement, and will provide a higher and more consistent level of clinical service than the current walk-in centres and minor illness/injury units.

It will be led by GPs and provide access to a range of healthcare staff.

Having the UTC located on the Arrowe Park site will mean patients arriving for urgent care will be assessed and directed to either A&E or the UTC to be seen by a GP or nurse.