Grantham Hospital to replace A&E with Urgent Treatment Centre

Grantham's A&E department will become a 24-hour Urgent Treatment Centre

Campaigners have said a plan to replace a hospital's accident and emergency department with an Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) "feels like a downgrade".

The change at Grantham Hospital is part of a reorganisation of hospital services across the county.

The 24-hour UTC will treat less serious cases, with major emergencies taken to A&E departments in other hospitals.

Other plans include making Grantham a centre for orthopaedic surgery and basing stroke treatment in Lincoln.

The board of NHS Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) voted to approve the recommendations following a 12-week public consultation about the plans.

In its consultation report, the CCG said the difficulty in recruiting staff by the trust that runs the county's hospitals had "led to a number of services becoming increasingly 'fragile' and struggling to be sustainable over a lengthy period of time".

'Lip service'

Responding to campaigners who wanted to retain a "full Type 1 A&E" unit at Grantham Hospital, the CCG report said: "The vast majority of patients seen at Grantham and District Hospital A&E department would continue to be treated at the 24/7 Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC)".

The CCG estimated that "around two patients a day" would not be able have their care needs met by the UTC and would be taken to other hospitals for treatment.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Jody Clark, the founder of the Fighting 4 Grantham Hospital campaign group, said the new UTC "won't be the service we wanted".

"They say it isn't a downgrade but it feels like it is, especially after losing our paediatrics and maternity services over the years," she said.

"It feels like lip service is being paid to the transport issues. Getting to Lincoln hospital regularly isn't viable for a lot of people who don't have transport, particularly in rural villages."

Peter Burnett, the CCG planning director, said: "Fast access to high quality diagnosis and treatment at the acute site can offset longer travel times.

"There's also ambulance travel time which can be still be used to support treatment of patients."