There are Minor Injuries Units at our three Community Hospitals in Crowborough, Uckfield and Lewes.
These services normally operate from 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year.
The MIUs are currently experiencing some short term staffing issues which we are working hard to address.
This situation has come about due to a combination of staff vacancies arising, unplanned leave and sickness.
To ensure a safe service, the units need to be staffed by highly trained Emergency Nurse Practitioners.
We are currently experiencing difficulties in recruiting these vital staff, and in addition, significant attempts to secure locum cover and approaches to our NHS colleagues at other local hospitals for help have not borne fruit.
As a result, following discussion with senior MIU clinicians, we are proposing to implement interim arrangements to ensure that patients continue to receive a safe and effective service whilst the issue of staff shortages is being resolved (See below for details)
Update on Lewes Victoria MIU
Revised opening hours have had to be introduced at the Lewes Victoria MIU this week due to further unforeseen staff sickness.
We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this has caused and would like to assure local people that we are working to resume a full service at Lewes for the week of Monday 26 July.
Interim opening hours for MIUs at Lewes, Uckfield and Crowborough
From Monday 2nd August 2010 – 31st October 2010:
We are looking at adapting the MIUs’ opening hours to ensure we can provide a safe service on every site.
To achieve this we would need to temporarily reduce the hours on two of the three sites .
The proposed hours would be as follows:-
Uckfield 7 Days per week 08.00 hrs to 20.00 hrs
Crowborough 7 Days per week 09.00 – 17.00 hrs
Lewes 7 Days per week 09.00 – 17.00 hrs
The adaptation of the opening times for Lewes and Crowborough is based on the level of local demand and the opening times of the X-ray department at Crowborough.
The revised opening hours at Lewes and Crowborough would be only temporary.
If we were able to safely return the units back to full opening hours sooner we would, of course, do so
