‘No parking concerns’ over re-location of Peterborough’s walk-in centre to city hospital site

Dr Kanchan Rege, chief medical officer at the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital in Bretton, said parking is no longer an issue.

Concerns were raised that moving the urgent treatment centre from Thorpe Road to the hospital would be a nightmare for motorists, but Dr Rege insisted that those fears were a thing of the past.

She told the Peterborough Telegraph: “If we’d had put the urgent treatment centre in when we first looked at this two years ago then it would have been a valid point, but we’ve created another 112 car parking spaces, and during the pandemic we’ve been working differently.

“A lot of people have telephone or video appointments for outpatients, and staff are doing agile working. Parking isn’t a problem now while we accept it was before.”

Dr Rege also answered criticism that a majority of respondents to a public consultation on the re-location of the urgent treatment centre had opposed the move.

Speaking ahead of the new-look opening its doors on Thursday, she replied: “It’s the right decision. We won’t have people going to the minor injury unit, not being happy, then coming to the Emergency Department (at the hospital). This is a much more appointments-based system - people won’t be hanging around.”