South West Lincolnshire CCG: Decision expected on minor injuries unit at end of July

The unit was put under review by South West Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group after health bosses said the service had not been successful.

A trial of the minor injuries unit was implemented following the overnight closure of Grantham A&E back in August 2016.

Now, John Turner, Chief Executive at South West Lincolnshire CCG, has said that a decision is anticipated on the future of the unit following the end of a public survey.

“At the moment we are looking very closely at what the local population have said to us about that service,” he said.

“I’ll be talking to the health scrutiny committee next week about that and no doubt they will have some questions for me too.

“I’m anticipating that the CCG would be making a decision on that at the end of July.”

The service was put in place for patients to use between 6.30pm and 11.30pm and is operated by Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust as part of the out of hours service based at the Kingfisher Unit at the hospital.

But commissioners have said that the unit has only seen on average five patients a month over the last year, costing £130,000 a month.

Chair of the Health Scrutiny Panel for Lincolnshire, Councillor Calr Macey, has sought clarity over the figures ahead of commissioners appearing before the committee on July 11.

Councillor Macey added that he was disappointed about the CCG’s decision to carry out a review.

Meanwhile, Fighting For Grantham Hospital campaigner, Jody Clark, said that it would be “wrong” to remove the service.

“It’s a scary time because we just seem to be losing more and more services,” she said.

“I understand that they want to review the service because it seemed underused, but I don’t think that many Grantham residents were aware of how to access it and where to access it.

“I think it’s wrong to remove it and leave us with the GP out of hours overnight because we still don’t have an answer to A&E closure.”