Temporary changes to NHS urgent care services in Leicester

The NHS in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland is making temporary changes to some local healthcare services with immediate effect.

From now on, urgent care services in Leicester will only be available by appointment at the Merlyn Vaz Hub on Spinney Hill Road and at the Westcotes Health Hub on Fosse Road South.

Both hubs will be open for patients with appointments from 8am until 8pm from Monday to Sunday.

Urgent care services at Brandon Street (Belgrave) and Saffron Lane will be temporarily suspended, with immediate effect.

GP practice, pharmacy, NHS111 online and telephone services will be available as normal.

The changes are necessary to make the best use of clinical teams and other health staff by basing them at fewer locations during the coronavirus outbreak. By doing this, the NHS can continue to provide services safely for patients and lower the risk of infection by reducing patient movement across services.

The changes are temporary, will be regularly reviewed and local people will be kept informed of developments.

The changes for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are set out below:

With immediate effect, the following locations only will be open for the provision of urgent care services:

The following services will be suspended: the hubs at Enderby, Melton Mowbray, Lutterworth, Oakham, Market Harborough, Coalville, Hinckley, Belgrave (Brandon Street) and Saffron Lane.

GP practices have already introduced their own telephone triage systems and most patients are calling NHS 111 when they need urgent care.

A spokesperson said: “We acknowledge this may mean more travel for some people to be seen. However, reducing the number of sites that our urgent care centres and primary care hubs are operating from during the coronavirus pandemic will allow us to continue to provide these services for patients while ensuring we can also respond to increased demand, in other local NHS services.”