HEALTH bosses received a hostile reception at a public meeting to discuss proposals for the future of minor injuries units.

The North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group has put forward four options for the future of the service, one of which could see minor injury units at Dovercourt’s Fryatt Hospital, Clacton Hospital and the walk-in centre in Colchester scrapped.

The others include retaining the units or establishing a new minor injuries service which would treat a range of minor injuries from fractures, wounds requiring stitching to infected bites.

The new service could be at unspecified sites located in north Essex.

The fourth option is for alternative proposals.

But residents who attended a meeting at the Electric Palace in Harwich hit out at health bosses during a public engagement session.

Speaking from the public seating, retired Harwich doctor John Rankin slatted the proposals to close the unit.

“I think that the option should be to keep the minor injuries units open,” he said.

“The population is going to go up very much here and in Colchester.

“The whole aim of this is to reduce the busyness of accident and emergency at Colchester, so we ought to keep the minor injuries unit and it ought to be beefed up a bit and used more.

“That would reduce confusion about where to attend if you are ill.”

Angry residents also said they feared other services would be based in Colchester.

One said he feared the engagement meeting was a “box ticking exercise”.

Another added: “What on earth are you even doing considering closing the unit?

“If you take it away then more and more people will go to Colchester’s A&E.”

Dr Hasan Chowhan, clinical director of the CCG, told residents that the current service contract is due to expire in March 2018 and that the CCG is looking at reviewing its effectiveness.

He said the local NHS needs to save £14 million a year and that the minor injury unit in Dovercourt costs £377,000 a year to run despite only treating an average of 19 patients a day.

“We want to make a sustainable health care system,” he said.

“We would like to have a presence in Colchester and a presence in Tendring.

“But this can’t be done in isolation – it’s about working with the 111 service and out-of-hours service and improving GP access.”

The CCG’s preferred option is to establish the new minor injuries service but Dr Hasan stressed that a decision has not yet been made and that he is keen to hear from patients and residents.

A final decision is expected to be made in May. To have your say as part of the consultation, which runs until March 1, go to neessexccg.nhs.uk.