Newark Advertiser evening briefing: Wonderful care at Newark Hospital

Newark’s Urgent Treatment Centre gets far too much bad press in my opinion, but my experience on Sunday night at the UTC couldn’t have been better.

After an unhelpful phone call to NHS 111, I took my daughter, who was suffering from a bad chest and was wheezing badly, to Newark’s UTC and after we were registered, were seen by a triage nurse within ten minutes.

It wasn’t long, probably 45 minutes, before we were taken through to see the clinician, who not only was very thorough and efficient and immediately arranged for a chest x-ray for my daughter, but had a lovely bed-side manner too.

The radiologist who conducted the x-ray was also fantastic, and it was soon confirmed that she had a chest infection and a prescription was made out for antibiotics and an inhaler, and we were in and out and back home within two-and-a-half hours.

I fully accept that it may have been much busier, with longer waits, on a different night, but I can only speak to the wonderful service and treatment we experienced, so I’d like to thank all of the staff we met on Sunday night.

My only gripe is that we weren’t able to actually pick up my daughter’s medicine until Monday as there wasn’t a single pharmacy open anywhere!

Luckily her medication wasn’t a matter of life and death, but what would have happened if she urgently needed that medicine? Something to think about for the future perhaps? — E. Yates, via email.