THE NEW Locality Hub at Solihull Hospital has opened, aiming to provide early intervention, and urgent response care for patients in the borough.
The service is run by a team of healthcare professionals from Solihealth General Practice and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) Community Services, including GPs, nurses, and therapists.
The service is by referral only by healthcare professionals, including Solihull GPs, NHS 111 and UHB’s Urgent Community Response Team.
Coun Karen Grinsell, Deputy Leader of Solihull Council, who cut the ribbon, said: “It’s fantastic to be here to mark the opening of this new hub at Solihull Hospital.
“We’ve all worked together to develop the service; it’s a fantastic example of partnership working between primary care and UHB.
“Long-term it will be about delivering services more locally to residents, which will hopefully mean they can avoid going into hospital and avoid putting that extra demand on A&E and ambulances.”
Martin Richardson, Executive Director for Solihull Hospital added: “By having a team with such varied clinical expertise delivering this service, we hope that patients will get more timely access to the care they need.
“By providing an enhanced level of clinical input in the community, we hope to see a decrease in the number of patients who attend our emergency departments (A&E) and prevention of unnecessary hospital admissions.
“This in turn will help to increase capacity in our hospitals and reduce ambulance offload delays, meaning ambulances can get back out on the road more quickly.”
The Solihull service is the second of six planned locality hubs to open across Birmingham and Solihull, with four further facilities due to launch locally in 2024.
Nish Patel, Clinical Director and Solihull GP Locality Lead, said: “This journey has been very transformational, and everything we are doing is very much centred around the patient.
“By working together as one big team to provide this service, we will be able to proactively look after patients and ensure that they receive the right care, in the right place, with the right healthcare professionals.”
