Newark Labour hold public meeting at Holy Trinity Community Centre on Boundary Road to discuss the return of 24-hour care at Newark Hospital

Campaigners have urged the town that we need to stand united to bring back 24-hour urgent care to Newark.

Newark Labour held a public meeting on Saturday (March 8) at the Holy Trinity Community Centre on Boundary Road, to discuss the return of round-the-clock urgent treatment to Newark.

The 24-hour accident and emergency department was closed in 2010 and the Urgent Treatment Centre’s overnight opening hours were reduced in April 2020 due to pressures during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The opening hours of the UTC were extended for patients between 8am and 10.30pm, seven days a week in March 2024, but a return for a 24-hour service was ruled out due to low patient numbers and staffing problems.

Several campaigns have been held since, urging health bosses to reverse the decision to bring 24-hour urgent care back to Newark, a decision the party described as “unfair”.

Representatives from the Integrated Care Board and the chairman of the Health Scrutiny Committee were invited to attend Saturday’s meeting, but neither attended the meeting. Around 40 members of the public and Reform party candidates for various wards were in attendance.

During the meeting, Newark Labour spokesman Paul Baggaley listed 11 key reasons why the party believe 24-hour urgent care should return to the town’s hospital.

These included the benefits of lessening the burden on major A&E departments if more minor injuries and illnesses could be treated at Newark’s UTC, as well as the associated money saving this would bring the NHS, and moving care closer to home would also shorten ambulance wait times and prevent ambulances being sent further afield.

It was also pointed out during the presentation that Newark has a growing, and ageing, population and that more care was needed closer to home.

Many people at the meeting spoke in favour of returning urgent care 24/7 to Newark, with many sharing their own or family members’ experiences of having to travel to King’s Mill Hospital or Lincoln County Hospital or Nottingham’s Queens Medical Centre for care which they argued could have been provided at Newark, but fell during closing times.

One resident said that it was “illogical” for Newark to have a UTC that didn’t offer 24-hour care.

Newark Labour spokesman Tracey Jevons-Hazzard said at the meeting: “The priority today is to raise concern within the community. What we have to do as residents of Newark is come together and have a collective voice and say to the Commission of health care that this is our concern and what we want to do about it.

“We can’t do anything unless you do it with us.”

Community first aider Lawrence Goff also argued that teaching first aid in schools would save lives and save the NHS money if people had the skills to save a life if needed.

Mr Baggaley added that he planned to stand for Labour in the upcoming county council elections in May, and if he were elected as Newark’s county councillor, he will do all he can to return 24 hour care to Newark.

“It’s about people before party for me,” he said, “If I get elected I can get something done about this.”