Chippenham MIU to re-open for booked appointments
The Minor Injury Unit (MIU) at Chippenham Community Hospital will start to receive referrals from NHS 111 from Monday 6 July 2020.
Chippenham MIU will have appointments available from Monday – Friday 10:00hrs – 18:00hrs for patients who have rung NHS 111 and are referred to be seen in our MIU. It will not be open to ‘walk in’ patients and there will be no x-ray facility on site. This temporary change in service has been designed to maintain the safety of patients and staff.
Patients will not be able to directly book an appointment. NHS 111 will continue to triage all appointments and if a patient meets the criteria they will be referred to the unit and a member of staff will call them back to arrange an appointment. Anyone with a life threatening condition should call 999.
Anyone with COVID-19 symptoms should not attend any medical setting unless explicitly directed to do so by the NHS 111 service or a 999 call operator.
Minor Injury Units offer a facility for treating injuries that are not serious, such as sprains and strains; minor burns and scalds, wound infections, insect and animal bites, and minor injuries to the eye, head. They are not specifically equipped to treat more serious conditions.
Douglas Blair, Managing Director of Wiltshire Health and Care, which runs the MIUs in Chippenham and Trowbridge, said: “We continually review our services to ensure that our frontline clinical staff are available to provide care for those who need it most and patient safety is at the heart of our service delivery. We are now in a position to re-open Chippenham MIU for booked appointments and, once we are assured that the system is working well, we will reopen the MIU at Trowbridge Community Hospital on the same appointment basis.”
Chippenham MIU closed in April after a decline in the number of patients attending since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. Staff employed at the units were redeployed to help look after patients across the local health and care system.