THERE is no intention to permanently shut Tavistock’s Minor Injuries Unit, hospital bosses confirmed to councillors this week.

The current temporary closure of the minor injuries unit (MIU) does not ‘signal something more permanent’, Caroline Dawe, care group manager for medicine at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, told members of Tavistock Town Council’s budget and policy committee on Tuesday.

However, she said the opening hours of Tavistock’s MIU may have to be ‘looked at’.

‘We have no intentions at this point to close the service permanently,’ said Ms Dawe. ‘We don’t want this to signal something more permanent. It was really disappointing to have to make the decision to temporarily close Tavistock’s MIU but it was due to the sickness of our Band 6 nurses.’

She said the service could have potentially been run for two days out of seven, but thought the inconsistency to the public would be confusing.

‘We took the decision to close it for three months while we had staff shortages and now we have plans in place for more staff and training,’ she said. ‘Nurse practitioners needed for MIUs need to be at the right level [Band 6]. There is a national shortage of these nurses in general.’

Ms Dawe said within the MIUs under University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, work was being done to build resilience for sickness and leave and over the next six to nine months they would be taking on Band 5 staff and training them them up quickly.

‘We are trying to build an improved programme — how we can do more and efficiently run the service. We do need to think about Tavistock’s opening hours. The service was run from 9am to 10pm but after 6pm there was really only a very small number of people attending. We need to maximise the staff’s time so we may need to look at reducing the opening hours.’

• For the full story, see today’s edition of the Tavistock Times.