PLANS to stop overnight services at Cirencester Hospital’s minor injuries unit (MIU) have nothing to do with cost, Gloucestershire NHS leaders said.

An NHS review of MIUs across the county was launched on July 12 after Cirencester Hospital's unit was forced to close scores of times overnight due to staff shortages.

The review will be considering three options. Members of the public are invited to inform the NHS on their preference.

The first option involves changing the opening hours of all seven Gloucestershire MIUs to 8am-8pm, while the second and third would involve stopping overnight services in Cirencester and Stroud.

More than 1,200 people have signed a petition by Councillor Joe Harris calling on Cirencester's unit to be kept open 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Cotswold MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has supported proposals saying that a 24-hour service was "not cost effective".

The county’s NHS leaders have however said that difficulties with a 24-hour service were not about cost but about the difficulty of finding qualified and specialist nurses.

Cirencester’s MIU unit currently relies on five full-time nurses, three of which are specialist nurses and two of which are qualified nurses, along with 11 part-time nurses, Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust revealed.

For the unit to operate properly, there must be at least one specialist nurse (emergency practitioner) and one qualified nurse working at all times.

Paul Jenning, chief executive of the Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust, said: “We are struggling to get the overnight shifts staffed. Many do not particularly want to work overnight as it does not help with their skills.

“The main issue is recruiting people to work for us. This is not a cost-cutting exercise. We have not got enough resources to maintain the quality, sustainability and safety of the services.

“We will be spending more money employing more nurses. None of these options will save us money.

“Our cheapest option will be to change the opening hours of all MIUs in the county, that will be at extra £200,000 a year.

“The second option to close overnight services in Cirencester and Stroud will cost us an extra £500,000 a year.”

According to Mr Jenning, Cirencester’s MIU closed overnight for about “a third to half of the time” in recent months. He also said that the unit would usually receive between zero to two patients from 11pm to 8am.

He said: “We are trying to protect a service in the context of efficient use of resources.

“It is always tricky when you change things and when people feel you are taking away things they are used to. We need to make sure that there are no dangerous consequences.”

Head of community hospitals in Gloucestershire, Julie Goodenough, said: “We need more people in the day. Nurses like that urgency and seeing people. It’s not good for anybody seeing nobody during overnight shifts.

“We need proportionately more specialist nurses, but they are highly sought after.”

The NHS review has already received about 300 responses so far.

A decision will be made at a board meeting in Stroud on September 20. Members of the public will be invited to attend.