A walk-in health centre in Newcastle is set to stay shut until later this year amid “significant” staff shortages.
The Westgate Road Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) has been temporarily closed since November last year, having suffered from a lack of available GPs and nurse practitioners to safely staff the site for months prior. A report to city councillors has now confirmed that the West End facility is now due to remain shut until at least the end of September.
Health chiefs say that the closure has helped to ensure more reliable services at Newcastle’s other two UTCs, at Ponteland Road in Cowgate and Molineux Street in Byker, though “ideal staffing coverage is still not being fully achieved”.
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The report from Joe Corrigan, of the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, to Newcastle City Council states: “The temporary closure of Westgate Road UTC was intended to create a more sustainable cross-city service, with staff previously employed at Westgate Road being re-deployed to other sites. Although the GP and NP (nurse practitioner) shift fill coverage has not increased appreciably since the closure, the consolidation of GP and NP staff redeployed to the remaining two UTCs (Ponteland Road and Molineux Street) has improved service sustainability and safety despite continued difficulty in securing GPs for UTC shifts.”
Figures due to be discussed by the council’s health scrutiny committee show that the closure of the Westgate Road site has produced only a small drop in the average number of people using the city’s walk-in centres – dropping from 667 per day to 665. NHS chiefs say that the number of people from wards closest to the Westgate facility, at the former Newcastle General Hospital, using UTCs has again fallen only slightly from 96 to 90 per day.
However, bosses admit that there has not been a substantial improvement in GP and nurse practitioner shift cover since the decision to redeploy Westgate staff to Byker and Cowgate. Since November, the average number of GP sessions at the UTCs covered by one provider, Vocare, has increased only slightly from 70% to 72% – with an average of 18 out of 61 per month unfilled.
Newcastle GP Services, which mainly provided cover at the other two sites and only 22 at Westgate, has filled 95% of its sessions since November. Nurse practitioner cover, which is provided by the Newcastle Hospitals NHS trust, has been 78% in recent weeks.
On several occasions in the months leading up to it shutting down, there were no GPs across all three walk-in centres and some had to be closed at short notice. Mr Corrigan concludes in his report that keeping Westgate shut for now will ensure a “safe, consistent UTC service will be available despite the significant staffing pressures that are currently being experienced which previously did not allow all three sites to operate safely on a regular basis”.
He adds: “To reopen Westgate Road UTC at this point is likely to result in significant challenges which are likely to require periodic short-term closures to facilities to ensure, as far as possible, safe staffing levels in the remaining UTCs. This is also likely to impact on the morale of staff and lead to further challenges in recruiting to the service. The clinical workforce challenges continue to prevail.
“It is proposed therefore that the Westgate Road UTC should remain closed for a further period of six months. This decision will be reviewed in September 2023 as part of the winter planning round.”
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