00:00It's a great pleasure to declare this urgent centre open.
00:07This is such a great news story, not just for the patients but also for the staff
00:13because this will relieve so much pressure off the emergency department upstairs.
00:18I take my hat off to the Southeastern Trust.
00:20I said when I started as Health Minister I wanted to be judged and I would judge myself
00:24by whether we're delivering better outcomes.
00:27And by that I didn't just mean better outcomes from patients which this will do
00:30but also better outcomes for the wonderful people who deliver healthcare and that's the staff
00:35and again this new facility will do just that.
00:38It is absolutely fantastic. I am so proud of what our team have delivered. It's brilliant.
00:42This is a really important day for the Southeastern Trust.
00:45We have been planning to provide an urgent care centre for a couple of years now
00:49and we've worked very closely with our design team and our clinical teams to realise a really good model of care
00:55where we've got our emergency department now co-located with an urgent care centre on the Ulster Hospital site.
01:00And this complements the model of urgent emergency care for our patients in the Southeastern Trust.
01:05So it's fantastic for our staff. It's fantastic for our patients.
01:08So this is the final piece of our urgent emergency care.
01:11So here in the Ulster Hospital site, it's been through consultation 2023.
01:15We initially opened a minor injury unit in the Old Estate and last year that saw 45,000 patients.
01:20We've now moved it over beside the urgent department. We'll be able to increase that number,
01:24manage some of the demand at the front door that we are experiencing and will continue to experience.
01:28And I think this is the best way to set up our service to give patients the best opportunity to good care.
01:34The urgent care centre here on the Ulster site treats minor injuries such as broken bones,
01:41foreign bodies in the eyes and the ears and nose injuries, minor head injuries, etc.
01:47The team have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that we were able to open today on the 19th of June.
01:53So it's a proud moment.
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