Thursday 1 March 2018

Who can use Corby's Urgent Care Centre?


I've been reading the #NotYou social media posts with interest.

If you haven't seen them, campaigners trying to save Corby's Urgent Care Centre have been highlighting groups of people that will no longer be able to use this excellent facility if the new proposals for it go ahead.

From my understanding of reading their information and the 'Re-setting Corby's NHS' brochure, the proposals say that the walk-in Urgent Care Centre will become an appointment-only Same Day Access Hub just for people registered with Doctors in Corby.

If you've got a minor injury or illness you can no longer walk in, wait and be seen. 

Instead you have to ring your own Doctors, be assessed by a navigator, get an appointment either at your own surgery, if they have one, or be redirected to the Same Day hub, if they don't - but only if you have a Corby GP.

If you haven't got a Corby GP, even though the Urgent Care Centre is your nearest medical facility when your surgery is closed, you won't be able to go there. 

As it stands, this will particularly affect Gretton Surgery, in Corby Borough, as it is served by a Doctor from Uppingham.  Even though its residents live in Northamptonshire, under these new proposals they won't be able to use it.

It will also affect a huge number of people living locally, who rely on the Urgent Care Centre on evenings and weekends when their Doctors are closed.

Also what about the children who go to school in Corby but live elsewhere; the thousands of workers who travel into the town every day; people visiting friends and family from outside the area; and the many people taking part in sporting events in the town?  Where do they go if they have a minor injury or illness while in Corby?

We are repeatedly told about the pressures upon KGH's A&E, and to only go there in an absolute emergency.

Where do we go if we can't access Corby's Urgent Care Centre?

Have your say about the proposals by e-mailing info@arch-comms.co.uk or writing to Freepost NHS Corby Responses.  The deadline for responses is 8th April, 2018.

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