THE DEVELOPMENT of a new urgent treatment centre (UTC) on the Cumberland Infirmary site took a key step forward last week as NHS leaders approved a business case to fully staff the facility.
Carlisle UTC will provide treatment for illnesses and minor injuries which require urgent attention but aren't life threatening.
Directors of North Cumbria Integrated Care held their latest board meeting at the Cumberland Infirmary on Wednesday March 25, where they approved the business case for the staffing of the 'designated co-located urgent treatment centre.'
Although it is now technically open, the UTC will not be fully operational until June.
Work was completed on the £12million build in January. Situated next to Carlisle's accident and emergency (A&E) department, it will form part of the wider network of UTCs.
Staffing issues at Keswick and Penrith UTCs are beginning to improve but on days when one facility can not be operated safely, the two teams are brought together at Penrith.
The new UTC is expected to make "a direct contribution to the trust’s plan to eliminate corridor care." It will also remove up to 40 patients per day from A&E, reducing overcrowding and 'decompressing' the emergency department footprint.
Carlisle's A&E was originally built for 30,000 attendances per year. Last year it saw 78,300 attendances and NCIC estimates that 22 per cent of those could have been seen in the UTC.
This overcrowding is named as the biggest risk to the emergency care collaborative.
The now approved business case is worth £1,219,433 and is one tranche of a wider urgent and emergency care transformation programme.
Approved funds for the UTC will cover the cost of GPs employed by NCIC on a permanent basis plus 12-month fixed-term contracts for nursing and healthcare assistants and part-time pharmacy staff, also on 12-month contacts.
Year one staffing costs amount to a £1,032,836 share of the business case while facilities management such as cleaning, portering, waste and other support functions, will cost £186,597.15.
In addition to the full 24-hour staffing of the UTC, the emergency care investment plan involves expanding same day emergency care services and establishing 'Hospital at Home Hubs'.
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Presenting the plan to the board of directors last week, interim chief executive Trudie Davies said: "It's the collection of these business cases together that we think will lead us to a transformed position across urgent care.
"You will see that the combination of cases relates to fully staffing our UTC here, in support of the existing UTCs - not instead of - so it becomes a collection of UTCs with a network across our region; SDEC, frailty services and our acute medicine support."
Ms Davies said: "That's to drive us in our ambition towards 'left shift', so to support people that don't need to come into hospital, to be able to rapidly access timely, high-quality care, to be provided with care in our community or in our community hospitals.
"We will expect to see transformed pathways and ways of working, with better patient experience, better outcomes and better performance, which should lead to reduced admissions and it should allow us to optimise our community hospitals more effectively in the long-term."
Ms Davies said that the business cases "are really about addressing some of the concerns we have, one of our highest risks about the waits that patients experience in our emergency department, both at the west site and our Carlisle site."
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