Urgent Primary Care Service at St Mark’s Hospital for Maidenhead Residents
People with minor illnesses such as chest infections, skin infections, or urinary tract infections, or injuries, such as cuts and grazes, minor burns or minor head injuries, will be booked into the Urgent Primary Care Service by their GP practice if they need same day care.
The St Mark’s team is led by GPs and includes nurses, physiotherapists and other clinicians, able to cater to a wide range of medical complaints and concerns.
We know that the St Mark’s Hospital site is important to the local community. We want to reassure residents that we continue to invest and transform the way we work to improve our services locally for our residents at this site and other NHS facilities.
The Urgent Primary Care Service has been developed during the COVID-19 pandemic by GP practices across the Maidenhead area – as the Maidenhead Primary Care Network – together with East Berkshire Primary Care and NHS Frimley. Its aim is to support the urgent healthcare needs of local people while also enabling GP practices to see and treat more patients with non-urgent health concerns, or patients with long-term conditions.
Dr Amandeep Dosanjh, local GP and Clinical Director of Maidenhead Primary Care Network, said: “GP practices in Maidenhead have been working to ensure local patients get the treatment they need at the right place and the right time, both now and in the future.
“This includes access to the same day Urgent Primary Care Service. Since September 2021, we have been providing a bookable same day minor illness service from St Mark’s hospital. We’ve been building the service in recent weeks and months so that we can now support same day urgent care for minor injuries for as many local people as possible.
“The service for both minor illness and injury is a bookable service only. By booking appointments through GP practices this will help us to make sure that people attend the right service to meet their needs and not travel, or wait, unnecessarily.
“We’ve had some extremely positive feedback from the people we’ve helped and we’re now looking to inform the rest of the local population about the service and how to access it, so that they can reach us when they need to.
“Leaflets are being delivered to people’s homes and I would urge people to look out for the leaflets, to read the information and to keep them handy just in case.”
Dr Stephen Dunn, Director of System Delivery and Flow and Place Convenor of the Royal Borough Of Windsor and Maidenhead for NHS Frimley, said: “We want anyone with any health problems or concerns to get the right care, in the right place, at the right time, without any wasted journeys or unnecessary delays. When someone contacts their GP practice, that person will explain what’s wrong and they can then be directed to the most appropriate service, which may be the service at St Mark’s.
“There’s a lot of pressure on all health services at the moment and we know how important it is for local people’s piece of mind to get the treatment they need, and in good time. That’s why we, the local GP practices and East Berkshire Primary Care have been working so hard to create a pilot service that responds to people’s needs and we hope those people who do need to be seen by the service will appreciate the benefit that it brings. We will be continuously evaluating the impact of the Urgent Primary Care Service ensuring the service provided meets the requirements of the population. Leaflets are being delivered to homes in and around Maidenhead with information about the service, as well as information on other options available. An online version of the leaflet can be found here.
