Health Minister Robbie Butler has described how Lagan Valley’s Urgent Care Centre is delivering high quality care to patients, during a visit to see how the service operates.
Lagan Valley Urgent Care Centre (UCC) is an Emergency Medicine Consultant led service. The Centre currently sees approximately 1,800 patients per month, with the vast majority receiving all the care they need in Lagan Valley Hospital.
The service is accessed on a ‘phone first’ only basis and is provided by a Multidisciplinary Team, including Doctors, Nurses, Physiotherapists and relevant support staff.
During the visit, the Health Minister had the opportunity to learn more about how the UCC provides care to local patients and hear from frontline staff on the success of the Centre’s model.
Minister Butler said, “I have had the chance to speak to patients and staff and that is very important to me. This is a phone first service and during my visit I have seen, first hand, phones getting answered by Doctors, by Consultants. I have seen that confidence given to patients who are phoning in to ask for the help and advice they need.
“It is important that patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time. I am keen to meet as many people as I can, clinicians, patients and service users and make sure that the Health Service is fit for purpose.”
South Eastern Trust Chief Executive Roisin Coulter added, “We were absolutely delighted to welcome our Minister for Health to Lagan Valley Urgent Care Centre. We know that he is a great supporter of the services that we provide. He wanted to come and see for himself the work that goes on at the Urgent Care Centre.
“The service provided by the Urgent Care Centre is really important to the population of Lisburn we are very proud of it.”
South Eastern Trust Clinical Director Dr Andrew Dobbin shared how complimentary the Minster was of the Urgent Care Model. “The Health Minister commented on the timeliness of the care we provide, of which he himself has used. We think the service works extremely well. It is very safe and efficient and is an example of where demand has matched capacity on the Lagan Valley site in terms of staffing and capability.”
Emergency Department (ED) Lead Nurse Jenny Nicholson met the Health Minister alongside her colleague, Urgent Care Centre Sister Smitha Thomas.
Jenny reflected, “Having the Health Minister visit the Urgent Care Centre gives us an opportunity to speak to him and for him to hear how much the Centre is an important resource for this community. The Centre is really well utilised and we are continuing to provide the care for our patients that they need, in their area.”
Smitha explained how it was the first time she had ever met the Health Minister. “It gave him an opportunity to talk to us and for us to talk to him and the Minister was able to hear about the great services we provide here in the heart of the community.”