The following note has been sent to the District Council by the PCTs:

Urgent Care Centres

The boards of NHS East and North Hertfordshire and NHS West Hertfordshire have reviewed progress on the development of urgent care centres for Bishop’s Stortford and St Albans.

There are existing minor injury units in both towns with 14,000 annual attendances at St Albans and 7,000 annual attendances at Bishops Stortford so they already treat a considerable number of patients locally.

Formal tendering process to develop new urgent care centres for St Albans and Bishop’s Stortford were halted at the end of 2009 because insufficient competitive bids were received. The current service providers were subsequently asked to draw up proposals to enhance the existing minor injury units in the two areas within existing resources.

This comes at a time when there are significant financial pressures in the NHS nationally and locally and the Hertfordshire PCTs are working hard to bring down a financial overspend primarily due to an increased level of activity in acute hospitals. The PCTs also face extremely challenging years ahead.

Having considered carefully, the boards felt there were risks that the new proposals, involving significant additional PCT expenditure, would not reduce patient attendances at A&E departments. Board members also felt there was a considerable risk of increasing numbers of patients choosing to use the urgent care services instead of their general practitioner therefore creating duplicate capacity and incurring duplicate costs.

The proposals would not therefore provide best value for money, be sustainable and maximise the use of resources in the current climate.

For these reasons, board members did not support the proposals. They asked the Urgent Care Working group to look again at how enhanced services could be provided in Bishops Stortford and St Albans and to report back to the new NHS Hertfordshire Board in the summer.