Updated 25 August 2021
St Mary’s Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) is commissioned to provide an urgent care service within north-west London. The service is located within St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington which is run by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. The UTC premises are owned by the hospital trust.
The service is provided by Vocare Limited who were awarded the contract in April 2016 following a procurement and tender process. The local management team in the centre comprises of an operational and clinical service manager, a local medical director, supported by two lead clinicians and an assistant clinical service manager.
The UTC is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week including public holidays. No patients are registered at the service as it is designed to meet the needs of patients who have an urgent medical concern but do not require accident and emergency treatment, such as non-life
threatening conditions. Patients can self-present or they may be directed to the service, for example by the NHS 111 service or their own GP. The service is GP-led with a multi-disciplinary team consisting of emergency department doctors, advanced nurse practitioners (ANPs), nurse practitioners (NPs), emergency nurse practitioners (ENPs) and emergency care practitioners (ECPs).
The UTC provides assessment and treatment of minor illness and minor injuries for adults and children. Reception staff at the point of entry to the service (A&E department) and paediatric initial assessment (streaming) is currently sub-contracted to the hospital trust that provide these functions on behalf of the provider.
The provider is operating within a commissioned clinical and operational model for patients attending the UTC which requires patients to initially present to the A&E department where they are streamed by a clinician to determine their care pathway. If the pathway is to be seen at the UTC then the patient is directed to separately located premises. The UTC is accessible by both an internal and external route within the hospital trust estate which takes approximately 10 to 30 minutes to walk dependent on pace, ambulatory capability or whether an internal or external route is chosen.
Patient attendances have varied significantly since the COVID pandemic began, but before then, the patient activity at the UTC was approximately seventy-one thousand patients per year.