"Purley Memorial Hospital"

Croydon CCG needs to make up its mind when and where people should go when there is an urgent and serious medical problem. What constitutes Urgent Care as distinct from Accident and Emergency anyway?

Croydon CCG don’t want too many people to turn up at Mayday A&E but have now twice cut the hours of Urgent Care and Walk-In Centres. It seesm there are fewer hours, fewer people.

Purley Urgent Care has two small signs reading 'Minor Injuries Unit' but, when driving past, there is no indication of opening hours so what’s a body to do? It would cost less to put up a banner than drop leaflets that people think are junk mail.

The CCG I think needs to think more like a business with marketing and selling their services; like supermarkets for example. Purley UCC is their shop window, hence the signs, so what sort of shop spends £8m on a rebuild and then reduces the opening hours it’s open so fewer people can use it? Also it seems there are potentially not enough urgent care staff available when people need them. They should be clearer about what the services are and to highlight the opening hours.

I think Croydon CCG so have more presence on the streets and to promote its services properly, like any normal business does instead of holding 3 hour Board meetings where the general public it seems to me are not welcome and the decisions have already been made. I call on the CCG to think from a Patient perspective for a change instead of thinking you know best because, quite clearly, you don’t.