{"id":790858,"date":"2026-10-03T16:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T16:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790858\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T16:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T16:56:11","slug":"rugby-mps-letter-to-nhs-bosses-demands-emergency-care-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790858\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby MP’s letter to NHS bosses demands emergency care upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of residents have signed an MP’s open letter calling on NHS bosses to provide doctor-led urgent care in a town’s hospital.<\/p>\n

Rugby MP John Slinger is campaigning for an upgrade to the current nurse-led Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) at the Hospital of St Cross due to population growth and pressure on nearby A&E departments.<\/p>\n

He told constituents: “Following my meeting with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) last week, I’m now asking the NHS to deliver it.”<\/p>\n

More than 300 people have signed the letter to the chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire ICB since the MP shared it on Saturday morning, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The hospital used to have an accident and emergency department, but it closed in 1997.<\/p>\n

The MP’s letter said residents were proud of the hospital, which provided an excellent service, but worried about access to emergency care.<\/p>\n

“Rugby’s population grew by more than 14% in ten years, and nearby A&E departments are under heavy pressure,” the MP said.<\/p>\n

“The nurses at St Cross do a brilliant job, but a town growing this fast needs more doctors at its local hospital, and soon.”<\/p>\n

While he welcomed changes that had brought GP out-of-hours care into the UTC, he said a further upgrade was needed “as soon as possible”, which had been called for by campaigners “for many years”. <\/p>\n

He said the ICB was “redesigning urgent care right now”, so it was the moment for Rugby residents “to be heard”.<\/p>\n

The BBC has contacted the ICB for a response to the open letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of residents have signed an MP’s open letter calling on NHS bosses to provide doctor-led urgent care…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-790858","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\/790858","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=790858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}