Penrith’s Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) has been providing more services than ever to the local population. Since November 2021, a change in opening hours meant that the staff were able to learn new skills to deliver ongoing treatments for a range of conditions as well as deal with the steady stream of people walking in with their minor injuries and illnesses.
Diane Brunskill, a staff nurse at the UTC, helped lead the training process for the team to gain the extra skills they needed. She explained:
“Since last year every single member of staff in the UTC has gained the new skills of managing PICC lines and Hickman lines as well as delivering infusions. Most staff are also now trained in blood transfusions and we have a plan to get everyone trained as soon as we can.
“I’m really proud of the team because it was a big change for them and took confidence to learn and to start to deliver this care.
“We are delivering care that we didn’t have the skills to before, to patients in the local area and it means they don’t have to travel to Carlisle or Whitehaven – we made that happen for our patients.”
Sam Budd, senior staff nurse added:
“It is the community that has benefitted the most because they don’t have to travel. The new way of working lets us go on a journey with the patient, we’ve got time talk to the patient and we feel much more part of the community.
“It’s also nice for the patients as they are getting continuity of care, you’ll probably see the same person when you come in for your treatment and even if you don’t we’ll pop in and say hello. We are genuinely interested in our patients and they are interested in us. It’s nice.”
Now the staff are trained, they have a lot of capacity to support more patients. Zoe Rigg, UTC Manager for this UTC and Keswick’s UTC, said:
“We know these services are needed in the community and now we are all upskilled we are hoping that more patients will be referred here for their treatment. It’s important that we make sure patients don’t travel further than they need to. Last week I had a patient who told me he was so grateful for the fact he could get his ongoing treatment here instead of having to go to Carlisle as it would have been a 60 mile round trip for him.
“Looking at future demands, we aim to continue the upskilling of staff and resources available to help meet the community needs.”
The team also plays a key role in supporting tourists. For example anyone with a PICC line who requires its weekly management of flushing and dressing change can be referred to the service including those from out of area.
Between Monday and Friday the team has supported a growing number of patients for scheduled care by appointments: 
| Month | Appointments |
| November | 12 |
| December | 39 |
| January | 58 |
| February | 69 |
| March | 74 |
| April | 65 |
| May | 79 |
| June | 77 |
| July | 63 |
This is as well as supporting people who walk into the unit for urgent treatment.
The team is very positive and have the potential to expand the scheduled services offered since undertaking further training. They want to start doing more infusions including iron, zoledronic acid and immunoglobulin therapy as well as other IV therapies.
Zoe said:
“We can already do some blood transfusions but we are keen to get more of the team trained up with that skill so that we have a more robust service. Being able to offer blood transfusions here is really important, the treatment itself is 3-5 hours long so reducing the travel time to the treatment is really important.”
Linda Bell, former nurse and chair of the League of friends congratulated the staff saying:
"As League of Friends, we are thrilled to have the UTC and developing scheduled care service in Penrith. All credit to the wonderful staff for taking on the challenge and making a difference."