THE manager of Bridgwater Community Hospital’s minor injury unit remains confident that the service will be able to cope with the town’s increasing population in the coming years.

Mike Paynter, consultant nurse for Somerset Partnership’s minor injury service, says the community hospital has proved successful since moving to the new location in Bower Lane from the former town centre site in 2004. 

He said: “The facilities are so much better than the Old Hospital. 
“Here in the MIU we have nine consulting rooms and one emergency room and we have seen the number of patients has increased dramatically.”

Bridgwater is the largest of Somerset’s minor injury units and last year saw 34,000 patients. 
“More often than not when hospitals move from a central location to a peripheral one, the number of patients goes down but we have been bucking the trend,” Mr Paynter added. 
“To be honest I think a big difference is the parking situation – whereas before there was limited spaces and people often had to pay quite a lot, here we can offer a large quantity of free parking.”

Bridgwater Mercury:

Mr Paynter and the team are urging people with non-emergency injuries to use the community hospital facilities in order to ease the pressure on local GPs and Musgrove Park Hospital’s accident and emergency unit. 
The unit is open seven-days-a-week from 8am until 9pm. 

“Our case mix is about 60 per cent injuries, 40 per cent illnesses and the average waiting time is about an hour,” Mr Paynter said.
“There are still a lot of people going to the A&E department who would be better off coming here. 
“We have a system which ensures those people who are very sick are not just waiting in line.”

Mr Paynter said the hospital team had been in discussion with EDF Energy and the mayor’s office about the increase in population expected in Bridgwater in the coming years in light of Hinkley C, but said he believed the services in place at the hospital would be capable of meeting the increasing demand.

James Willis, one of the emergency nurse practitioners, said: “I have been here two years and it is a great place to work, we have a really good team here.”

Jennifer Fury, a health and social care student at Bridgwater and Taunton College, has been visiting the MIU as part of her studies. 
She said: “It’s useful to see everything in practice rather than just learning from a book.”