X-ray walk-in centre 'takes pressure off A&E'

By [bbanks]

People who think they might have broken a bone could soon be x-rayed at Lincoln's hugely successful NHS Walk-In Centre.

The idea to have an x-ray facility at the centre - to relieve pressure on Lincoln County Hospital's A&E department – was raised at Lincolnshire's health scrutiny committee yesterday.

And the manager of the county's only NHS walk-in centre, Michelle Webb, said she is currently gathering data that could demonstrate what a useful addition an x-ray facility would be.

But Mrs Webb told the meeting that the walk-in centre's current building at 63 Monks Road would not be suitable for housing x-ray facilities.

However, as revealed by the Echo, NHS Lincolnshire is looking for a suitable building in the Monks Road area of Lincoln where a new state-of-the-art clinic can be launched in April 2011.

The super-surgery will amalgamate the walk-in centre, the current Arboretum Surgery and Linmed, the out-of-hours GP service currently based at Lincoln County Hospital.

Mrs Webb told the meeting: "I don't think the current building would lend itself to it but if we did have x-ray facilities we would not have to refer to the hospital as much as we do."

For more details of the proposals, see Thursday's Echo.