"Urgent Care Centre - Clinically Unsafe."

Attended the Urgent Care Centre late Sunday afternoon. The place was packed. Both the adult and children’s waiting rooms were full and people were sat on the floor opposite the reception desk. Not a very good first impression. Booked in at the desk and was told by the reception staff that there was a “very long wait”. After nearly 4 hours of waiting, it became apparent from the staff behind the reception desk that there was something wrong. We then saw staff from the A&E department come out and speak to the staff at reception. By this time is was after 6pm. We then found out that there were no Doctors on duty, they had all left! It was very clear that there were some frantic phone calls being made by the reception staff. I heard another member of the public ask the staff why there were no doctors on duty in an Urgent Care Centre and he was told “we’re working on it”.

I understand that the Urgent Care Centre is run by a private company but if this is the way they run their affairs I have to ask why Chorley allow them to operate on their premises? No doubt it’s to do with coatings, but if they are running a Centre with no doctors on duty, they should be removed and replaced by a competent company. In the end we were there for nearly 5 hours!

My personal opinion is that I will never visit this Urgent Care Centre again with my children and I would advise any other patients who attend this place to ask as soon as you arrive “how many Doctors are currently on duty”? If this is how Urgent Care is run then they are running a clinically unsafe operation. There were quite a few poorly patients in that place on Sunday.

Chorley Hospital should be ashamed to allow a private company to operate such a poor service on their site. No doubt it all comes down to money, but where patient safety is being called into question, then there should be some very serious questions being asked at executve level.