Urgent care and out of hours

What is an emergency and how can you access urgent care?

What to do

You can call 999 in an emergency or use the NHS 111 online service or call 111 (if you cannot get help online) if you are not sure whether your condition is an emergency.

How to contact 111 if you have a hearing problem or need help in other languages

Start online access to 111

To get help for a child over 5 or adult
Access 111 online:

Urgent care services

The NHS provides simple information when to use the common urgent care services:

More information and contact details

Included below is information on mental health emergencies and medical emergencies and what you can do. In addition, there is broader urgent support (“all urgent care”) in other situations available locally.

Adults

Children


Local urgent treatment centre (minor injuries unit)

Our local urgent treatment centre(s) include:

Currently both the Urgent Care Centre at St Marks Hospital, and at Upton Hospital are closed.

Information on what an urgent treatment centre treats and details on some of the local centres are included under

If you are not sure you can call 111 and they will direct you to the closest urgent treatment centres (walk-in centre or minor injury unit). Some centres require a booked appointment (through 111) and some may be shut.


Out of hours

Out of hours is considered to be the period when the surgery is shut (see opening hours for our surgery hours which includes all our closures). You can call 999 in an emergency or use the NHS 111 online service or call 111 (if you cannot get help online).

Start online access to 111

To get help for a child over 5 or adult
Access 111 online:

Other support

There is significant support out of hours some of which you can access directly without needing advice from 111. This is explained further below.

What are out-of-hours services?

As the NHS suggests “outside normal surgery hours you can still phone your GP surgery, but you’ll usually be directed to an out-of-hours service. The out-of-hours period is from 6.30pm to 8am on weekdays and all day at weekends and on bank holidays.

Out-of-hours cover may include some or all of these services:

  • GPs working in A&E departments or urgent care centres, including minor injury units or walk-in centres
  • Teams of healthcare professionals working in primary care centres, A&E departments, minor injury units, urgent care centres or NHS walk-in centres
  • Healthcare professionals (other than doctors) making home visits after a detailed clinical assessment
  • Ambulance services moving patients to places where they can be seen by a doctor or nurse to reduce the need for home visits.”
    “NHS out-of-hours services.” The NHS website. Retrieved 2 February 2022.

Your local urgent care centre
You can find more information about urgent care centres, including on your local urgent care centres in the section above.

Find a pharmacist out of hours

As the NHS suggests if your local pharmacy is closed, you can use the NHS pharmacy service search facility to find other nearby pharmacies and their opening hours – some are open until midnight, even on public holidays.

You can find the directions for an open chemist using Google maps as explained under

Emergency supply of medication – out of hours when your surgery is closed

As the NHS suggests

Emergency contraception

For emergency contraception see under the “local support” section under

Minor burns, sprains, cuts and bites can often be treated by a pharmacist

For information on this see “Emergencies, accidents and injuries” under

  • Pharmacy – see section “support managing common conditions”
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