Report on plan to move Peterborough’s Urgent Treatment Centre rejected and branded a ‘farce’ by city councillor

Members of the city council’s Health Scrutiny Committee have rejected the report relocating the Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) to Peterborough City Hospital (PCH).

Cllr Nick Sandford said he couldn’t support the noting of a report that he felt: “…made a farce of the entire consultation process.”

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) conducted its BIG Conversation survey between September-December 2019, in which the question of moving the UTC to PCH was first asked of the public.

At that time two-thirds showed support for the move.

But following the pressures of Covid-19 on the NHS and coupled with additional worries about travel, parking and staffing, a subsequent consultation saw a reverse in support for the move, with two-thirds of those asked now against moving the UTC.

Cllr Sandford’s remarks were made because he felt the CCG had seemingly accepted the first outcome, with two-thirds in favour, and ignored the later outcome with two-thirds now against.

The comments came at a heated online meeting (January 12), when Jessica Bawden, Director of Primary Care CCG told members: “The ‘BIG Conversation’ consultation with the people of Peterborough included the proposal to relocate the UTC and GP Out-of-Hours services from their city centre location at Thorpe Road, to the PCH site in Bretton.

“At that time, an overwhelming two-thirds of those questioned indicated support for the idea of moving the UTC, which would create a single point of access for urgent and emergency care services and is in line with the NHS Long-Term Plan in January 2019, setting out a national direction for urgent care services to be co-located alongside the acute injury and illness sites.

“However, following the Covid-19 pandemic and the pressures that has put on the NHS, an additional consultation on the issue raised many concerns including questions about car-parking – already a serious issue at PCH – whether people would be turned away from the relocated unit, and whether there was space at A&E to accommodate the UTC.

“All of these questions were considered and answered by the CCG Board, who determined the inclusion of more than 100 additional parking bays with disabled spaces, mother-and-child spaces and more visitor spaces.

“However, because people clearly had valid concerns, the CCG Board agreed in advance they would delay the moving process until April 2021, to allow for winter and the latest surge in Covid-19, which has almost certainly impacted upon that date, pushing it back even further.”

But Cllr Sandford (Lib Dem, Peterborough City Council), wanted to know: “Why is it that only the questions from the BIG Conversation showing two-thirds of people questioned were in favour of the relocation have been acknowledged in today’s report?

“Yet in the subsequent consultation report the results show more than two-thirds against the relocation.

“These later results aren’t carried forward or even included in the document you’ve presented to the committee?

“I don’t have any problems with the consultation in principle as I felt it was a fairly comprehensive set of questions; my concerns are more about how the CCG Board has responded to the results of that consultation.”

Cllr June Bull (co-optee, Orton Longueville Parish Council), added: “While I agree that a fully-integrated service is not the issue here, the two-thirds of the public who now oppose the move to PCH cite travel and transport, car-parking, and issues around competence in a Covid-19 secure environment at PCH during a pandemic.

“While the CCG Board have addressed some of these matters, concerns remain about having a walk-in service which wouldn’t be possible at PCH, and the need for a Pharmacy that hasn’t even been addressed yet, nor has the capacity of the waiting areas allocated or the strain the entire move would place upon the hospital and its staff, already suffering from shortages due to stress, strain, overwork and illness.

“Then there is the poor IT functionality, no co-ordination of finances or care pathways, as well as those issues raised by the Communities’ Values Panel.

“So how are you actually addressing these ‘other’ valid concerns, and do you think it’s politically correct to use one-third of those polled to support your stance?

“I’m relying here on the Cabinet Office Advice on Consultation that says: ‘Where you do dip-in and use the results of a consultation, then you have to be mindful that you are looking at mitigation where possible.

“It seems to me that you’re using one third of the respondents to buttress the relocation idea, while two-thirds of those opposing appear to have been swept under the carpet – and I feel that they and I deserve some answers on that.”

Jessica Bawden responded: “I disagree that we’ve haven’t been open and transparent about how many people were against the proposal – we’ve stated 70 per cent in documentation – but I think we were surprised by the level of reversal of views from our initial responses back in January, compared to post Covid-19.

“What we’ve tried to do in this report is to make sure that we don’t forget the strength of that feeling against the proposal – it’s not that we feel it doesn’t matter, because clearly it does matter to the people who took the time to respond to us, and they are concerned about parking, they are concerned about travel and they are concerned about infection control.

“What the CCG Board wanted to do was to monitor those concerns as we make changes so that we now have an Oversight Board managing the day-to-day process of the relocation and address those issues.”

Caroline Walker, CEO North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust (NWAFT), added: “I would just say that we have £4.9m of building work going on right now to address some of the concerns raised about queuing, social distancing, capacity of waiting areas.

“That building work is currently on-time and will be finished before the transfer happens.”

The UTC at Thorpe Road had previously played the role of an important city centre Minor Injuries and Illness Unit (MIIU), otherwise known as a ‘walk-in’ centre, and a GP Out-of-Hours Service contacted through NHS 111.

Open every day from 8am to 8pm, the service treated a range of illnesses and injuries that are urgent, but not life-threatening.

However, since the onset of Covid-19, patient confidence in the provision of services by the NHS at hospital sites during the pandemic has wavered, and it would now appear that more than two-thirds of those who originally commented, and who may have supported the move, now do not support a move of the UTC, nor would they want to travel to a major hospital overwhelmed with coronavirus.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Chair, Cllr Kim Aitken (Conservative, Peterborough City Council) asked members if they were prepared to note the findings of the report.

Cllr Nick Sandford responded: “No, Madam Chair I am not prepared to simply note a report that I feel has made a farce of the entire consultation process.

“While I appreciated that from the perspective of the CCG and the health service there are clear advantages in having these services all in one place, it’s also quite clear from the results of the latest public consultation that a majority of people in a sample of over 1000 are opposed to the move – which is quite a good response to this type of consultation.

“If you’d already decided that this was something that was going to happen regardless, then wouldn’t it have been more open to say that to the people: ‘this is something that’s going to happen, we’re only really consulting you about how it happens’?

“What people have been saying to me is that this is exactly the type of situation where they’re asked for their opinion – and then their responses are ignored.

“That makes people really cynical.”

Cllr June Bull, went further adding: “My recommendation would be that we have a mitigation come back to the committee before we accept this particular report – bearing in mind that two-thirds of the respondents have real, specific concerns.

“Yes, we’ve heard that there is an oversight group who’ll be looking into these concerns, but actually I feel that it needs to be brought back for scrutiny.”

Cllr Simon Barkham (LibDem, Peterborough City Council), said: “I think that’s an excellent idea and I propose that we do not accept the report before us this evening – that we await an additional report that looks at the recommendations to mitigate against the issues raised by the two-thirds of the respondents who opposed the relocation.”

Members unanimously agreed to reject the report before them, and wait for the additional report to be brought before the Health Scrutiny Committee before their next meeting on 15 March 15, 2021.