Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has for Clinical Commissioning Groups to phase out the provision of walk-in centres.

NHS England is committed to providing the most appropriate out-of-hospital urgent care, which is simple for patients to navigate. In response to the review of urgent treatment services in the National Health Service (published in 2015), patients and the public said that they felt confused by the mix of walk-in centres, minor injuries units and urgent care centres, in addition to numerous general practitioner health centres and surgeries offering varied levels of core and extended service.

The ‘Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View’ set out plans for the roll-out of urgent treatment centres. Following the publication of ‘Urgent Treatment Centres – Principles and Standards’ in July 2017, systems have been developing their plans for local service provision.

The NHS Long Term Plan has reiterated the intent to fully implement the Urgent Treatment Centre model by autumn 2020, so that all localities have a consistent offer for out-of-hospital urgent care.