Urgent treatment centres (UTC) in Birmingham could close under a planned shake-up. <\/p>\n
There are currently five UTCs in Sutton Coldfield, Erdington, Washwood Heath, Selly Oak and Summerfield, dealing with urgent but non-life-threatening illness and injury.<\/p>\n
A review by NHS Birmingham and Solihull has found “they do not all operate consistently or fully meet national guidance”.<\/p>\n
Two options for the future of the centres are being put forward as part of a public consultation, both of which would see some closures. <\/p>\n
The first option would keep the centres in Erdington and South Birmingham, on Katie Road in Selly Oak, open with both upgraded to meet national standards.<\/p>\n
But the Summerfield and Washwood Heath UTCs would close.<\/p>\n
In their place, there would be specialist urgent care services based at local health hubs in the same locations.<\/p>\n
Out-of-hours GP care would also change, becoming one service across Birmingham and Solihull offering mainly virtual consultations, as well as face-to-face appointments and home visits when needed.<\/p>\n
The NHS says these specialist urgent care services would focus on “specific local needs such as frailty, respiratory care, heart care or wound care”.<\/p>\n
But unlike current UTCs, patients would need to be referred by a healthcare professional, and could not just walk-in. <\/p>\n
The second option would go further with the Summerfield, Washwood Heath and Erdington centres all closing and being replaced by Community Urgent Care Centres on the same sites.<\/p>\n
The South Birmingham UTC in Selly Oak would shut.<\/p>\n
Instead two Community Urgent Care Centres would open at Moseley Hall and West Heath.<\/p>\n
These would focus on treating patients with minor illnesses and injuries, who are unlikely to need X-rays or stitches.<\/p>\n
Walk-in care would be available, as well as appointments booked through NHS 111, and would be based in local health hubs offering a range of services. <\/p>\n
Out-of-hours GP care would again be linked to these hubs, with most appointments carried out virtually, alongside face-to-face appointments and home visits when needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Urgent treatment centres (UTC) in Birmingham could close under a planned shake-up. There are currently five UTCs in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-654371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}