New urgent treatment centre opening in Plymouth

Up to 100 patients a day will be seen there

Derriford Hospital’s new urgent treatment centre (UTC) will divert 80 to 100 patients a day from the main emergency department, reducing pressure on the main hospital.

The state-of-the-art centre, within the new Dartmoor building on the Derriford site, opens on Wednesday 3 September ahead of the complete opening of the £50 million building next month which will also house outpatients, the fracture clinic and pre-op assessments.

Open from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, the UTC will be in addition to the Cumberland Centre in Devonport and Minor Injury Units (MIU) in Tavistock and Kingsbridge.

Twenty consulting rooms will be available for patients with minor injuries and illnesses and include six specially designed rooms for children, spacious separate waiting areas for adults and children, an X ray room, treatment and assessment rooms and a plaster suite for broken limbs.

Dr Anne Hicks, consultant in emergency medicine, said the new centre would help to “decongest” the hospital as nearly a third of the patients who would normally attend the emergency department (ED) would be seen in the UTC from day one and there was capacity to take more.

When fully opened the Dartmoor building will cater for up to 1,000 patients a day. 

Staff at the UTC will also be able to prescribe antibiotics and painkillers and are trained to deal with a wider range of minor injuries and illnesses than in an MIU.

It means that the emergency department will focus on patients with major life threatening illnesses and injuries and patients who turn up there after 8pm with minor injuries will be asked to go home and come back the next day to the UTC.

Dr Hicks said there had been “a huge amount of work” in this area after a number of critical incidents were declared in the emergency department when the hospital’s resources were overwhelmed.

The hospital is now leading the trusts who have made the most improvement regarding patients being seen within four hours of arriving at ED.

Dr Hicks added that “everyone is really buzzing” about the UTC which also had great educational space and “ a lovely staffroom” where staff could “recover and restore”.

“This is a real moment of pride in the local hospital system, we have had our struggles but this is a time of great optimism and we can be really proud of the care that all patients will get coming through our doors.”

Radiologist Josh Waters said the X ray room and facilities were a big improvement on the existing Derriford facilities which were dated and cramped.

“It’s also much smoother for patients and we can get them away from the major side of things in ED and then straight back to clinic for quicker treatment. It allows for a more patient centred service, we can spend more time with them, to explain what is going on throughout. It won’t be rushed.”

The room for dealing with broken limbs has been named the Sally Higgins Plaster Suite after a much-loved long standing ED nurse with a passion for plastering who used her skills to teach many other members of staff.

You do not need to pre-book an appointment at the UTC and there are 14 drop-off spaces and two disabled parking spaces, each with a 30-minute limit. For longer stays, the multi-storey car park is available. 

The Dartmoor building is located at the top of the hospital site, opposite the multi-storey, Costa Coffee and Boots chemist.

Among the patients who can be seen here are those with sprains and strains, minor head injuries, minor scalds and burns, bites and stings, foreign body in eyes and infected wounds and cuts and limb fractures.

A new emergency care building attached to the hospital is estimated to open in 2028.