Access times set to change for weekday urgent care services at Melton Hospital

Out-of-hours appointments with GPs and nurses on weekday evenings will begin 90 minutes later, at 6.30pm, although they will continue to be available until 9pm, following a public consultation.

But opening times for weekends and bank holidays will continue to be from 9am until 7pm, with proposals to finish two hours earlier being thrown out as a result of the consultation, which was carried out by NHS East Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group (ELR CCG).

Urgent care services, which offer appointments with a GP or Nurse, can be accessed by patients if they need urgent medical attention for conditions which are not life-threatening.

Tim Sacks, chief operating officer at ELR CCG said: “Local people have told us that having services close to home is important to them.

“They’ve also told us that services need to be simpler so its clearer where they need to go when they have an urgent care need.

“We’ve listened and are changing the opening hours of some of our urgent care centres so that they are open when local GP practices close, making it simpler for people to know which service to go to when.”

He added: “We believe the changes will help to improve access to urgent care services for all of our patients, but should also ease the pressure on our accident and emergency departments.

“The new service opening hours will no longer overlap which also means we are able to spend public money more efficiently whilst making it easier for people to know where to go for urgent care.”

The changes were approved and announced by the CCG in September 2018 following conversations with the public and a survey last summer.

The new services across East Leicestershire and Rutland will be provided by DHU Health Care and the East Leicestershire and Rutland GP Federation following a procurement process.

The managing director of DHU Urgent Care Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, Simon Harris, said: “We are proud to be the delivery partners to operate and manage the out of hours services across East Leicestershire and Rutland.

“We’re looking forward to offering patients the benefits of our experience running urgent care services which are joined up with NHS111 to give people access to a range of out of hours care that meets their needs.”

Daytime services to treat minor injuries will continue to be available in Melton at Latham House Medical Practice in Melton.