New £1 million Urgent Treatment Centre opens its doors

A new Urgent Treatment Centre has opened at Epsom Hospital following a £1 million investment, meaning patients can be directed to the right team for non-emergency care faster than ever before.

The new department was created to make sure people who need urgent treatment (such as patients who need stitches or have ran out of asthma medication) can access medical attention quickly without having any impact on the emergency and life-saving cases in the A&E department.

As part of the design of the new Urgent Treatment Centre, which has been built alongside the A&E department (where the old antenatal waiting room was in the Bradbury Wing), a new reception has been created, meaning that every patient who does not arrive in an ambulance will initially be seen by a streamer nurse who will make an instant decision about whether a patient needs urgent medical attention in majors – meaning that the sickest walk-in patients will be escalated sooner than ever before.

For other patients, we now have two triage rooms, and can take bloods and ECG tests (to look at the rate, rhythm and electrical activity in the heart) in secondary triage. We have seven consultation rooms, meaning our emergency nurse practitioners have more space and additional capacity to see more patients, and we have a designated room for a GP colleague to see patients from 10am-8pm every single day.

Dr Amir Hassan, the Clinical Director for Urgent Care at Epsom and St Helier hospitals, said: “Our staff work incredibly hard to make sure that patients who come to us for urgent or emergency treatment are provided with compassionate care in a timely way – that is something that we pride ourselves on, and the commitment runs right through our organisation.

“However, there are times (such as this incredibly busy winter) when that is not an easy task and some patients with less urgent conditions experience long waits in A&E as we care for the sickest patients. Our new Urgent Treatment Centre will allow us to make sure patients get seen by the right people as quickly as is possible.”

Chief Executive Daniel Elkeles said: “I am so proud to be a Chief Executive of an organisation where even a record breaking winter like this one cannot stand in the way of progress. After months of hard work, the new Urgent Treatment Centre at Epsom is now open, and is already making a difference to the way we work.”

The new entrance and waiting room is now situated at the entrance to the Bradbury Wing, and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.