Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to utilise the role of NHS minor injury units in (a) St. Austell and (b) Newquay to reduce pressures on A&E departments in Cornwall.

Community-based services, which include minor injuries units, urgent treatment centres and minor injury services provided by general practitioners and pharmacists, play an important role in making sure people can access the appropriate services when and where they need them.

Minor injury units (MIUs) across Cornwall have treated over 86,000 people during the past financial year and during the last three months, MIUs in the Cornwall area have treated nearly 25,000 patients. Of those, just over 3,000 were treated at St Austell and just over 1,500 at Newquay.

Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has a protocol in place which enables resources to be shared between St Austell and Newquay MIUs. In addition, partnership arrangements are in place between the National Health Service and the local council to use the Better Care Fund to provide a range of services including: generic support workers; improved community bed capacity, and more flexible and responsive domiciliary care to ensure that patient assessments and re-ablement are carried out in the most appropriate, out-of-hospital setting.

Locally, the NHS has extensively promoted the use of all community based services, including support from pharmacists, self-care and the importance of having the flu jab.