Overnight services scrapped at Huntly, Peterhead and Fraserburgh Minor Injury Units in Aberdeenshire, as Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership budget set
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THREE Minor Injury Units (MIUs) in Aberdeenshire will have their overnight service scrapped, after plans were agreed at a meeting today.
Councillors and NHS Grampian staff voted to permanently end out-of-hours care for minor injuries in Huntly, Fraserburgh and Peterhead to save £716,000 this year and £1 million next year.
According to NHS Grampian, MIUs help patients with non-urgent injuries like cuts, wounds, minor burns, scalds, sprains and less-serious broken bones.
However, the units do not deal with illnesses or life-threatening issues.
Led by nurses, the Huntly is based at the Jubilee Hospital alongside out-of-hours GP service GMED – which is set to continue.
Those who would previously have been helped at the MIU between 7pm and 7am will instead be told to come back for an appointment the next day.
The closure was agreed in a cost-cutting budget for the Aberdeenshire Health and Social Care Partnership (AHSCP), a joint-effort between NHS Grampian and Aberdeenshire Council.
Documents show that the AHSCP was facing a £20 million shortfall this year, forcing them to find £12.5 million of savings.
Another £7.5 million needs to be found throughout the year to balance the budget, the meeting heard.
And the organisation predicted that, by April 2029, it will have cut nearly £57 million.
Closing the three MIUs overnight is set to make up less than six per cent of this year's total savings.
At the meeting, Councillor Seamus Logan (SNP, Fraserburgh) and Councillor Moray Grant (SNP, West Garioch) lodged a motion to stop the overnight closure of the minor injury units.
However, the bid was defeated by an amendment to press on with the changes, which won the day by six votes to two.
"I, and probably other colleagues in IJB, have received a massive volume of correspondence with regard to this particular proposal," Cllr Logan said.
"My central point is that these issues have not been properly explained to the general public.
"Engagement is not consultation. Engagement is about selling something we've already made a decision about, whereas real consultation is setting out the facts and engaging people in the decision-making process."
Cllr Logan also argued the new system would negatively impact certain cases, providing one example of a child suffering an asthma attack.
He added: "Another example was given to me yesterday, by a councillor who I won't name, of when he sliced his hand with a knife and cut four fingers and was leaking blood quite badly.
"He wrapped it in a drying cloth, didn't bother ringing 111 as the algorithms suggest, but went down to the MIU.
"Standing outside with blood dripping from his hand, he was told: 'No, no, you have to ring 111.'
"And I shudder to think, with that kind of presentation, how that would be handled under the new processes that are being described."
Lead nurse for the AHSCP, Ali McGruther, said the examples described by Cllr Logan showed a lack of understanding over which issues were dealt with at MIUs.
A child suffering an asthma attack would be a "999 issue", for example, and the anonymous councillor would have received "self-care advice about what to do" by calling 111.
It the cut was more serious, the case would then have been triaged to the GMED – or the A&E team if it was life-threatening.
"Again, it's that clear differentiation between a minor injury, an illness or a clear acute clinical emergency," she said.
Hospital staff, she added, would not let people who appear at hospital without first calling 111 come to harm.
She said: "If there's not a nurse there, if it's a doctor, they will have a duty of care to act and make sure that someone is safe.
"But our aim would be to make sure that doesn't happen and people are clear where they need to turn to."
From November to January, the AHSCP recorded patient numbers at the three MIUs.
The survey found that Huntly's MIU, on 17 nights in December, saw no patients present with a minor injury.
And, on the unit's busiest night that month, only three people attended with minor injuries.
Between November and January, there were at least 600 more appointments available than the number used.
Each month, the total attending the MIU with minor injuries went from a low of 15 to a high of 21.
And more patients received care for "non minor" injuries and GMED support in November, December and January.
Aberdeenshire West MSP Alexander Burnett said he believed the change would cause people to avoid medical treatment "because they can't access an ambulance or find transport to Aberdeen."
However, proposing the succesful amendment to push ahead with the closures, Councillor David Keating said those opposed to the measure had misunderstood the role of MIUs.
Scrapping the overnight service would allow the 15 nurses that work overnight across the three units to fill staffing holes elsewhere in Aberdeenshire.
"I take comfort, and I think we should all take comfort, from the fact that further engagement will take place," he said.
"And therefore, we will hopefully be able to communicate to those who have, sincerely held, concerns that this is not what they want.
"This is not what they think it is. It is a simple improvement in efficiency."
Keith Grant, from NHS Grampian, raised concerns over staffing under the new plans and said that Huntly's Jubilee Hospital had already seen disruption to staff.
"My worry is that, with the recruitment and retention of staff, if we go through organisational change with these staff we may have a deficit of staff.
"And I had a look through and actually the only minor injury unit north of these areas is Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin.
"So there's nothing in Moray either. That's just about my worry."
The AHSCP argued that staff and unions were consulted on the overnight closure, and further engagement events are planned in Huntly, Fraserburgh and Aberdeenshire.
