RESIDENTS will have to travel to Chertsey to receive immediate hospital treatment, after plans to replace the Emergency Department, at Ashford Hospital, with an Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) were approved by North Surrey NHS Primary Care Trust (PCT), despite opposition from 12,000 residents.

Recommendations have been made to the PCT's preferred option, which would improve the way Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals work together by providing the majority of planned orthopaedic surgery and day surgery at Ashford, with A&E, intensive care, emergency medical care, and all other planned surgery requiring an overnight stay at St Peter's, in Guildford Road, Chertsey.

The existing Emergency Department would subsequently be replaced with a UTC, which is manned by nurses, from 7am to 10pm, and which would provide overnight access to GPs.

North Surrey PCT has now agreed to adopt option 3b from the recent public consultation, Shaping the Future of Your Local Health Services'.

A full Outcome Report was presented to the board, which made a series of recommendations, such as: Exploring whether children's day surgery can be maintained; Ensuring co-ordinated services are developed for people in the west of Hounslow (Feltham, Bedfont and Hanworth) in relation to older people, rehabilitation, out-of-hours services and chronic disease management; Exploring the feasibility of a midwife-led unit at Ashford; Working with local partners to review the recommendations of the recent Transport Survey.

Full implementation of option 3b is expected to take up to two years.