CIRENCESTER Hospital’s Minor Injuries Unit will close from 11pm every day starting on November 1, despite protests from residents and councillors to keep it open 24 hours a day.

The change follows public discussions which ran throughout the summer, and which culminated in a decision at a meeting of Gloucestershire Care Service’s Trust Board in September.

NHS bosses are overhauling Gloucestershire’s seven MIUs, including those in Cirencester and Stroud, in a bid to save costs and bring them in line with Care Quality Commission guidelines after a study in June last year found the county’s MIUs required improvement.

News of the plan prompted anger from the local community with a petition started in July by county councillor and former Cirencester mayor Joe Harris collecting more than 5,400 signatures before being handed in to Shire Hall.

Speaking at a county council debate, triggered by the cross-party petition on September 14, Cllr Harris said the changes to opening hours at the MIIUs was just one piece of a bigger puzzle.

“This issue acts to highlight the slow erosion of our national health service,” he said.

“We are told that is process isn’t about cost cutting. But I ask you, would this really be happening if the NHS wasn’t strapped for cash?

“Closing these units overnight will hit the most vulnerable people in our communities the hardest – those who cannot so easily get from A to B.

“This will mean that some people have to get a £70 taxi to Swindon or Cheltenham for treatment and it will result in more calls for an already under-pressure ambulance service.

“It comes back to the same point again and again – that our NHS is underfunded.”

Recruitment problems have meant that between December 2015 and May 2016 the county’s units had to close 142 times – 94 per cent of those were in Cirencester and Stroud.

The new rules requiring two nurses on MIUs mean the cheapest option in the review will still cost the NHS an extra £210,000.

NHS bosses said MIU use has increased seven per cent over the past year but that, on average, Stroud and Cirencester combined saw only 4.5 patients each night between 11pm and 8am.

Mike Roberts, medical services director at Gloucestershire Care Services, also a GP, said many patients who used the overnight services should either have gone to A&E or waited until the morning to use the MIU.

“The major challenge is the overnight shift: it’s hard enough getting one member of staff let alone two.

"One of the reasons for this is because these are extremely well qualified nurses – they don’t want to be sat around all night waiting for a patient, they want to be busy.

“This is about making a safer service, it isn’t about making financial cuts.”