Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart has today written to the Chief Executive of East Riding Clinical Commissioning Group, Jane Hawkard, outlining his opposition to any proposal of closing the Minor Injuries Units (MIUs) at Hornsea and Withernsea and requesting a meeting to discuss the situation in detail.
East Riding CCG is designing a new Urgent Care Strategy for the period to 2020, assessing how best to commission urgent and emergency care across East Yorkshire. Among the options under consideration is to close the Minor Injuries Units in Hornsea and Withernsea on the basis they do not represent the best use of resources.
In his letter, Graham asks a series of key questions regarding what assessment the CCG has made of the following issues:
- The fact that utilisation of the MIUs in Hornsea and Withernsea will logically be lower than many other MIUs because, as coastal locations, half the radius of the area they serve lies in the North Sea;
- The fact that the communities of Hornsea and Withernsea are disproportionately elderly, with relatively high levels of health problems and disability; and
- The seasonal reliance on local health services of large numbers of visitors to both Hornsea and Withernsea due to tourism.
Graham has also requested more detail about the cost of the MIUs and data on how often they are used, as well as the timetable for the CCG’s decision-making process.
Graham’s letter concludes:
“[It is] my belief that it would be much preferable to do more to advertise the availability of our MIUs, rather than close them down and force people to travel almost twenty miles into Hull for treatment. Many people in Hornsea and Withernsea feel very strongly that they do not want to lose their local MIU. I am also doubtful that it would be the right thing to direct more people with minor ailments to our already hard-pressed Accident and Emergency Units.” Please Like the Facebook page www.facebook.com/saveourmiu to be kept up to date with the campaign.
