Residents praise new Urgent Treatment Centre

At next week’s Health Scrutiny Committee for Lincolnshire, county councillors will look into a report on the first six months of operations at Grantham Urgent Treatment Centre, following its transition from an Accident & Emergency unit.

It followed years of campaigning by the local community, when the A&E was downgraded to opening hours between 8.30am and 6.30pm, rather than 24 hours a day, back in 2016.

Severe staffing issues were to blame for this downgrade in opening hours, according to United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust at the time, and it was only due to be a temporary measure for around three months.

It ended up lasting seven years. The Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group unveiled plans for an overhaul of the local health sector in May 2022, including transitioning Grantham A&E to a 24/7 Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC).

This took another year to be finalised, and it was in October 2023 when Grantham & District Hospital opened its UTC in place of the limited hours A&E.

Coun Charmaine Morgan (Independent), a member of the Health Scrutiny Committee, a ward councillor for Grantham St Vincents, and an avid campaigner for the return of 24-hour care in Grantham, said she feels “vindicated” in her efforts after seeing the results of the opening year.

“I’ve had to go in there myself and use the services, and my main observation is that it’s being heavily used by local residents, which is a good indication for a real need for local provision, for such emergency treatment.”

Her feelings on this matter are backed up by the facts, with Grantham UTC reporting a near 50 per cent increase in daily attendances since the transition from A&E to Urgent Treatment Centre.

In the first ten months of 2023, which were the final ten months it served as an A&E, an average of 80 attendances were recorded in the limited opening hours, compared to 116 attendances since it went live as a UTC.

Despite this uptake of people using the facilities, productivity does not appear to have been impacted. In April 2024, the percentage of patients being admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours was 85.3 per cent, slightly higher than the 85 per cent performance of the A&E in its final three months of service.

Coun Morgan said campaigners fighting for Grantham hospital’s future were “proven right” in their arguments for greater levels of medical support than the blanket GP-level care a UTC can normally provide — with doctors and consultants on-site to treat patients displaying acute conditions.

“We fought for not just 24/7 care but also for it not to be an ordinary UTC, because that would have been disastrous.

“GP-level care would not have met the needs of the community and patients, and what we did was prove it was needed, so now we feel vindicated for sure.”

It is not just local councillors seeing the benefits, it is the community of Grantham and Sleaford also.

Mike Bailey called the hospital and the staff “first rate” and said the Urgent Treatment Centre is the “best in the trust” across the whole of Lincolnshire.

“You will never get 100 per cent but it’s pretty close,” he said. “The thing is Grantham hospital is more like a family run unit.”

This was echoed by Sleaford resident John Brickles, who said it is “as good if not better than any of our local area hospitals.”

Deborah Knowles wanted to share a word of praise for the staff at Grantham UTC, a vital topic given the previous downgrade from 24-hour care was reportedly due to strains on staff numbers.

She said: “Grantham hospital staff are blooming fantastic. With all the cuts and changes, myself and my family have always been given great treatment.

“I have an auto-immune disease which has led to other issues and there have been occasions I have had to have emergency treatment, and they have always been there. I can’t fault the service.”

Barbara Rowlandson called it an “excellent facility” but says it does still “lack the A&E side of things,” and there are still occasions where you are “passed from pillar to post” for other treatments.

Transferring people over to Lincoln County Hospital does appear to be a common theme, and it is one that Coun Morgan would like to see addressed moving forward.

“There are still issues at Lincoln with wait times, and the patients that are the most sick seem to have to travel the furthest. That is our biggest concern at the moment.

“We were advised it would be able to take critically ill patients requiring sustained treatment, but our fear was that ambulances could still bypass Grantham and take patients to Lincoln instead.”