COMMUNITY patients in Waverley and Guildford should now get rapid effectively targeted care – thanks to a “transformational” facility based at Milford Hospital.

Instead of spending time searching for the right community service for their patients, GPs and ambulance staff can send all their enquiries and referrals to Milford’s new community co-ordination centre.

Centre staff then ensure patients get rapid access to care from the appropriate community services team. It could be care from the crisis response team for urgent visits – ensuring a patient is seen within two hours – or other services, such as community nursing and therapy services.

All community referrals are processed for planned and unplanned care and co-ordinated for patients. The CCC ensures all referrals are handled quickly with a clinician managing professional-to-professional conversations. Crucially, the CCC will never reject a referral but will redirect it to the most appropriate service.

Jane Fagan, interim associate director of ops and transformation at the Royal Surrey County Hospital Foundation Trust, said: “It’s all about making sure people get the right care, at the right time, in the right place by the right person.

“The CCC is saving hundreds of hours of clinical time that would normally be spent dealing with referrals. It releases more time for our clinical staff to provide direct hands-on care for patients.”

Staffed by a team of eight, including clinicians and admin staff, the centre is open seven days a week from 8am to 6pm and has been developed without any additional funding.

The service has been fully operational in Waverley since the end of January and will soon be handling all calls from the Guildford area. The Waverley District Nurse hub is now based within the CCC and will be joined by district nurses from the Jarvis Centre in Guildford.

Community GP David Triska, based at the Witley Surgery, said the new CCC has been “transformational” in the service offered to patients, and the reassurance it gives to NHS staff working in the community.

? Milford Hospital’s Cedar Ward also became the temporary home to Chiddingfold Surgery last week as part of a joint operation with NHS Guildford and Waverley CCG and Royal Surrey County Hospital to put interim arrangements in place for patients as soon as possible, following the devastating fire on January 7 that destroyed the surgery building.

NHS Property Services have been busy refurbishing the ward ready for use by Chiddingfold Surgery. Facilities for telephony and IT were restored to enable surgery staff to operate their usual functions from January 31.

While the work was in progress at Milford Hospital, an almost fully-operational service has been available at Dunsfold Branch Surgery and Milford Crossroads Surgery for Chiddingfold patients.

A dispensing service will also be available shortly at Milford Hospital in the coming weeks and a full dispensing service will be running from Dunsfold Branch Surgery.

Dr Darren Watts, Chiddingfold Surgery partner, said: “We have been overwhelmed by the support the surgery has received over the past few weeks from the local community as well as from colleagues within the NHS. I would like to thank everyone for their help.

“Colleagues have really gone the extra mile, working together to put a primary care service in place as soon as possible for local residents. They really have shown great resilience.”

The majority of paper notes stored at the surgery were destroyed in the fire. However, clinical records are also stored electronically and this data remains fully accessible.

For the vast majority of people, key clinical information remains available, but the records of a very small number of patients had not been converted at the time of the fire.

These patients will be contacted directly by surgery staff to ensure their records are up to date.