AN urgent care centre at Warrington Hospital is helping to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions and waiting in the A&E unit.

The centre, which opened in October, is for patients who are referred directly to hospital by GPs for surgical and medical assessments.

So far staff have seen around 9,250 patients come through the doors, an average of 1,000 a month.

If a GP feels there is a potentially urgent problem that needs hospital assessment. the patient can be sent directly to the centre.

It means they do not need to go to A&E or wait for a bed on one of the main wards.

Warrington Hospital decided to invest in urgent care last year to improve patient experience and to provide a better one-stop service.

The 16-bed facility, which replaced the emergency assessment unit, has its own nursing team and on-call medical teams to provide immediate assessment to patients.

All of their monitoring can be carried out at the centre. Specialists will then make a decision on further care and if patients can be discharged or need further treatment on one of the hospital’s specialist wards.

Some patients who have initially been taken to A&E, either by ambulance or as self-referrals, are also referred to the unit. The majority of patients who go to the unit will only spend a few hours there as their assessment is carried out quickly.

The aim is that no patient will need to stay for longer than 12 hours.

The hospital also runs an urgent care clinic from the unit. This is for patients who GPs do not think need urgent admission to hospital but who would benefit from an appointment with a hospital consultant.

An appointment for these clinics can normally be provided within 24 hours.

Anne Allison, matron for acute medicine, said: “The urgent care centre has really made a difference to patients who are referred for assessment at the hospital.

“Now the unit is fully established we are developing a range of performance indicators, developed in line with A&E.

“Our aim is that patients are assessed by a nurse within half an hour, seen by a doctor within an hour and have a decision based on their assessment within four hours.”