NHS Walk-in Centres

(asked on 9th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS GP walk-in centres there are in the UK; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 17th March 2020

The Department does not hold a recent definitive figure for the number of walk-in-centres (WiCs) nationally. WiCs were developed locally and over time the nomenclature for them and the services they offer have overlapped with other services such as Minor Injury Units and Urgent Care Centres.

Due to this difficulty in specifically identifying WiCs, it is not possible to identify the number of closures. Because WICs are managed locally, information on them, as well on demand for and access to services across local health services, is not held centrally.

As WiCs were developed locally, their effectiveness and cost effectiveness is a local issue. However, a limited study was undertaken by Monitor, the organisation formerly responsible for ensuring healthcare provision in NHS England, and now part of NHS Improvement. This covered the period 2010-13 and consulted patients, walk-in centre providers, general practitioners, commissioners and other stakeholders in the sector.

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