Warminster Hospital adds out-of-hours care (From This Is Wiltshire)

Warminster Hospital adds out-of-hours care

3:30pm Friday 19th March 2010 in

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Sick people in Warminster and Westbury will get better medical care from April 1, when the town’s hospital will become part of the new-look out-of-hours GP service.

Doctors who run the service say it will improve when Warminster and the Great Western Hospital in Swindon are added to places providing out-of-hours cover, which already includes Trowbridge and Chippenham hospitals. Dr Andrew Cowie, of The Porch surgery in Corsham, is a founding director of Wilts Medical Services, who have won a contract with NHS Wiltshire to run the out-of-hours service across the whole county from April 1.

Dr Cowie said there will be out-of-hours cover at Warminster Hospital for five hours a day on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays. The sessions will mainly be run by a nurse practitioner and sometimes a GP.

The service is referral only, with patients being sent to the hospital by WMS staff after ringing the out-of-hours service number or calling their own GP practice.

“It’s not a walk-in service. We are not there to provide a minor injury service. It is for people who feel they need urgent assistance during the out-of-hours period, for medical conditions that have got worse which the person is worried about, or for medical conditions that have arisen,” Dr Cowie said.

“The service is going to be enhanced across the entire county and Warminster will benefit from that.”

WMS has provided out-of-hours cover for the past five years in Kennet, north and west Wiltshire.

Warminster mayor Tony Nicklin said: “It’s absolutely wonderful news. To know this service is now coming into the town is to be welcomed as it goes to show that Warminster Hospital has a future in the county.

“If the town were to be without any hospital facilities it would be disastrous for the community as a whole.”

Dr Cowie said: “I genuinely believe the quality of service we will offer will be better because of the spread. Wiltshire is very challenging. There is simply not the resource to have a centre everywhere people would like.”