The following recommendations were amongst those accepted by the East and North Hertfordshire and West Hertfordshire PCTs, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust and West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, and relevant to our area:

1. That Emergency and Acute services in East and North Hertfordshire should be consolidated at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage.

2. That there should be commissioning of two local General Hospitals to provide substantial centres of care for local communities in Hemel Hempstead and Welwyn Garden City.

3. That they should establish a network of urgent care centres to provide access for about two thirds of patients who currently attend A&E department.

4. That they should pilot urgent care centres at both Cheshunt and Hertford for one year. Criteria to be set by the board for measurement of success and to determine any change to opening hours.

In brief, what this means is that there will be a ‘nurse –led’ centre at the Community Hospital which will be open 8am to 6.30 pm. This will be for minor injuries and illnesses that are not serious or life threatening.

After a year, the PCT will consider the use made of the centre and, if necessary, make adjustments to the opening hours. They pointed out that GP ‘out of hours’ would cover the time between 6.30 pm and 8am.

The services available in both Hertford and Cheshunt Urgent Care Centres will be exactly the same.

Hopefully, this service will benefit the residents of Cheshunt. We will have to wait and see exactly what services will be at the General Hospital and the Urgent Care Centres before we know how good the service will be. We are also unsure as to how long it will be before this all is put into place.

Annette Dodd
Secretary

For more detail, log on to www.enherts-pct.nhs.uk