Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC) provide treatment for same day urgent illness or injury. They are GP led services staffed by GPs and emergency nurse practitioners.
We have UTCs at both Conquest Hospital and Eastbourne District General Hospital, co-located within our emergency departments. Our UTCs help to ease the pressure on our emergency departments and enable our emergency medicine specialists to focus on those patients who are seriously unwell.
Our UTCs are open 10am to 10pm, seven days a week, including bank holidays.
When should I attend an urgent treatment centre?
Urgent treatment centres provide urgent medical help when it’s not a life-threatening emergency. The service is suited to patients with illness of injury that cannot wait more than 24 hours, ie it is not an emergency, but treatment needs to be provided today.
Many patients who attend our UTCs will have been sent to us via NHS111, who can book you an appointment directly with an UTC. However, everyone who attends our emergency department answers a series of questions so that we can understand the symptoms you are presenting with and provide you with the most appropriate care for those symptoms.
Emergency departments are for patients with genuine, life-threatening emergencies, and many people who attend our emergency department do not attend due to a life-threatening emergency. Most of these patients are, in fact, seen by colleagues in our urgent treatment centres.
What conditions are treated in an urgent treatment centre?
Conditions we treat in our UTCs include:
sprains and strains
suspected broken limbs
minor head injuries
wounds, cuts and grazes
bites and stings
minor scalds and burns
ear and throat infections
skin infections and rashes
eye problems
coughs and colds
feverish illness in adults or children
abdominal pain
vomiting and diarrhoea
emergency contraception
Will I always be seen?
All patients are clinically assessed by a nurse on arrival and if your symptoms do not require same day urgent treatment we may refer you to see your GP or another community service, such as a pharmacy. As an urgent care centre working for the community, we need to make sure that patients are seen in the most appropriate pathway to ensure that the most ill patients receive the care they need.
This video explains more about urgent treatment centres and where they fit in the urgent and emergency care system: