Patients will lose overnight access to hospital's injury unit
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The minor injury unit at Banff Chalmers Hospital is set to close overnight.
A review of minor injury units (MIUs) being carried out by the Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership, which has been under way since March 2018, has moved into the final phase.
At a meeting of the integration joint board members discussed and agreed a paper with recommendations for the future operating model of the Banff minor injury unit located at Chalmers Hospital.
Members of the board discussed in detail the recommendations laid out in the report and agreed them in full.
The board agreed that given the low number of people using the unit overnight and concerns around lone working for nurses on duty during the out of hours period, the unit should focus resources on the provision of the minor injury service during the "in-hours" period seven days a week.
Representations were made to the board by representatives from the Friends of Chalmers Hospital and Banff and Macduff Community Safety Partnership.
Both groups commented that concerns had been expressed in the local community about where people experiencing illness or severe injury during the night, could seek treatment.
However, the board was content that there is an already established pathway to treatment that people with illnesses should follow and that severe injuries would continue to be treated at the emergency department at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
The board further supported an added recommendation that there should be public information campaign around what a minor injury service can treat and where people should seek advice, care and treatment if they do not have a minor injury.
Rhona Atkinson, chairwoman of the IJB, said: “Discussion at the meeting of the IJB has been robust and I would like to thank the team behind the review and in particular the members of the Banff Local Implementation Group which included senior staff from the unit, for all their hard work.
“The recommendations we discussed and agreed will help to ensure the sustainability of the service into the future and will also help to enhance the service that we provide at the times when we know there is the highest demand.
“I would also like to thank the various representatives of the Banff community who came along to
speak to us, I trust that having heard our deliberations they will be re-assured that we take our responsibilities to that community very seriously and have not agreed the changes lightly, but that we have listened and looked at what all of the evidence has told us before making these decisions and agreeing the recommendations.”
The board said hours that the unit should be open will take into consideration the service demand, data analysis and the ability to deliver a sustainable and attractive nursing workforce model.
It was also agreed that officers would present an update paper to the IJB in six months detailing
the impact of the changes to the service opening hours.
Councillor Anne Stirling, vice chairwoman of the IJB said: “The MIU at Banff is a service, cherished by the local population and that has been clear throughout the review and at the public events which we held.
“It has also become clear that we need to ensure that the nurses who deliver the service are fully supported and appropriately trained and that we can no longer ask them to work alone in the unit, never knowing what could come through the doors, at all hours of the night.”
