HEALTH services in and around Minehead will receive a major shake-up over the coming months to ensure patients can receive the treatment they need.

Minehead’s minor injuries unit (MIU) on Luttrell Way has been temporarily closed to patients between 9pm and 8am daily since July 2021 following “concerns about the safety of the service".

The closure was originally due to last four months, but was extended for a further six months in November 2021 to allow health bosses to come up with wide-reaching plans to improve acute health services in the west Somerset area.

The Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has now confirmed final decisions on these services (including overnight services at the MIU) will be taken in the spring.

It has also hinted that the new model of care could be implemented across the county over the next 18 months if it proves successful.

The issue was discussed in detail at a meeting of Somerset County Council’s adults and health scrutiny committee in Taunton on Wednesday morning (January 27).

Maria Heard – who leads up the CCG’s Fit For My Future programme – said there had been cases of Minehead patients not receiving the treatment they needed because they attended the MIU during night-time hours rather than going to Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton (the nearest acute hospital to the town).

She said: “There have been three examples over the last three years where patient outcomes have been compromised because the patients attended the overnight MIU rather than going to A&E.

“We have heard concerns about general access to emergency care in Minehead and the wider west Somerset area.

“We are working to agree on a model of care for the west Somerset area which best responds to the urgent and emergency care needs of the area.”

Following the initial four-month overnight closure of the MIU, a review of the service was carried out, involving the MIU staff, health partners and the general public.

The review found there were “no safety risks” with closing the MIU overnight, adding that any impact on the surrounding healthcare services (such as GP surgeries and pharmacies) would not have been better managed by keeping it open.

The review also found the MIU was acting as a “safety net” for local patients, in light of both the lengthy journey to Musgrove and the long waits for ambulances.

Ms Heard said: “As MIUs are not designed to deliver the level of urgent and emergency care described, the use of this service as a ‘safety net’ would attribute to further safety concerns where the MIU was to remain open at night.”

The board of the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust (which runs both Musgrove and the county’s community hospitals) voted in November 2021 to extend the overnight closure by a further six months, giving the CCG and other health partners until May 1, 2022 to come up with a long-term plan for urgent and emergency healthcare in the area.

Councillor Mandy Chilcott, who represents Minehead, said drastic changes were urgently needed to ensure that her constituents got the care they needed.

She said: “I have people that are very concerned about health provision locally – it’s letting us down, whether it’s ambulances, GPs or the MIU. It’s not working.

“Not everyone knows how poorly they might be. There are cases where people pop into the MIU and they find they have to pop down to A&E. Had they waited until the morning, they may have deteriorated.

“Many people have no transport and there’s no public transport past 6pm – so there’s no way they can get to Taunton. Closing the MIU at night does not address that.

“We need to work with health locally to find an innovative solution which can work locally. If you can work something out here, you can roll it out elsewhere.”

Julie Jones, the trust’s service director for integrated and urgent care, said work was being done to provide transport for urgent care.

She said: “Travel is an issue, particularly for the elderly, and I think we need to think about whether we can provide some transport for getting them into Taunton and getting them back when they need to go home.

“There is quite a lot going on around services, and we’re not communicating with the public very well about what is there, where they are and how people can access them.

“We are really starting to think about how we support people who fall in the area, because we know that ambulance response times are not good in the area.”

Councillor Hazel Prior-Sankey, who chairs the committee, questioned whether enough Minehead were using the NHS 111 service, ensuring they would be directed to the correct NHS service.

She said: “NHS 111 is available throughout the county. Is it that people have no trust in 111? We’ve had them at scrutiny before and called all over this.

“I’m not convinced that this is seen as part of the solution – but it should be, surely?”

Ms Heard responded: “There are some really good advantages of 111 now – they are starting to have the ability to book you into urgent treatment centres, MIUs or your GP the next day. The connectivity is starting to join up – it’s not quite there yet.

“It’s a mixed picture – there’s a bit of mistrust. If you called it once years ago and it didn’t do what you needed it to do, you won’t try it again.”

The final recommendations for the future shape of health services in and around Minehead will be published in the spring.

Minehead MIU remains open seven days a week between 8am and 9pm, with the trust stating in August 2021 that no further closures of any of Somerset’s MIUs were being planned.