The closure of a walk-in centre in Newcastle due to major staffing shortages is “worrying”, councillors have heard.
City health chiefs announced in November that the Westgate Road Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) would be shutting down temporarily for the winter months. The Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust said that keeping the site, at the former Newcastle General Hospital, closed until March would allow staff to provide a “more consistent” service at the other two walk-in centres at Ponteland Road and Molineux Street and avoid patients getting “mixed messages”.
Figures presented to Newcastle City Council this week revealed that an average of just 21 people per day use the Westgate Road centre, which was also closed last winter. Lib Dem councillor Wendy Taylor, who chairs the authority’s Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee, told colleagues on Thursday that the staffing pressures at the site were a worry – but that the facility’s long-term future would have to be questioned due to its low attendance.
