Edgware Community Hospital's walk in centre (WIC) will be closed overnight from June, health bosses have decided.
After months of consultation, Barnet Primary Care Trust (PCT) directors agreed at their board meeting last Thursday to close the service which treats minor injuries between 11pm and 7am at the hospital in Burnt Oak Broadway, Edgware.
Bosses have argued that if the current overnight WIC were to continue which they say is only attended by around ten patients a night it would need an additional £750,000 to make it clinically safe, by providing doctors, security staff and installing X-ray facilities.
But at the board meeting at the Greek Cypriot Centre, in Britannia Road, North Finchley, Barnet's London Assembly member Brian Coleman asked: "Why was it safe when you opened it and it is no longer clinically safe now? If you are making this saving have the honesty to say that the reason you want to close it is because you don't have the £750,000 to fund the overnight service."
Charles Hollwey, chief executive of Barnet PCT, told board members that the £150,000 saved by closing the WIC would be redirected equally into daytime and out-of-hours services such as BarnDoc, a group of GPs who will provide telephone advice out of hours, and Harmoni, its equivalent in Brent and Harrow.
The PCT also agreed to install a telephone booth at the front of the WIC for people arriving after 11pm to call 999, NHS Direct or BarnDoc.
The public consultation, which launched on December 12 and concluded on March 17, revealed that out of 20 responses, 16 supported the development and investment in the out-of-hours service, while three wanted the service to remain as it was. One did not state a preference.
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