A new Urgent Treatment Centre is being built next to the emergency department at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, in the hope of reducing pressure on A&E
A new urgent treatment centre to be built at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary.(Image: Newcastle Hospitals)
A new Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) being built at a city centre hospital is on course to open in January. Plans were signed off earlier this year for a new development at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI), which it is hoped will reduce pressure on the hospital’s emergency department.
And councillors were told that the new UTC, which is currently under construction next door to the A&E department, is still expected to open early in the new year – with hopes that it can immediately help relieve strain during the busy winter period. Caroline Docking, Newcastle Hospitals director of communications and corporate affairs, confirmed to Newcastle City Council’s health scrutiny committee on Thursday that the UTC is expected to be open from the middle of January.
The centre will offer an alternative provision where patients with urgent, but not life-threatening, conditions can be seen rather than them waiting in A&E. It had originally been hoped that the site would be ready to open before the end of 2025.
Newcastle currently has two other UTCs – in Byker and Cowgate. The move to open another within the footprint of the RVI came following the closure of another walk-in centre on Westgate Road due to a shortage of GPs and nurse practitioners needed to staff it.
When the plans for the new centre were given the green light by Newcastle City Council in March this year, acting hospitals chief executive Rob Harrison described the new UTC as a “dedicated and modern facility for people who need help with an urgent health need which cannot wait or be treated at home.” He added: “Patients will be able to see the right person to meet their needs, through the centre’s team of doctors, nurses, therapists and other healthcare staff.”
The new facility will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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