Video: Get the Right Care, Right Now from the local NHS this winter

You can now access the unique NHS Mobile web App www.rightcarerightnow-nhs.net and view an interactive directory of local NHS services to guide you to the right place for health care, where and when you need it.

The campaign, supported by the Crawley Observer, West Sussex County Times and Mid Sussex Times, is all about ensuring people know where to go to get the right health care, in the right place at the right time throughout winter.

Dr Amit Bhargava, lead GP for the CCG which plans, buys and checks NHS care, said: “The Right Care, Right Now Mobile web App is aimed at guiding our patients to the right service in the local area.

“The different choices for care can sometimes seem confusing, with many people not knowing when to go to their pharmacist, make an appointment with their GP, or when to walk in to the Minor Injuries Unit,

Urgent Treatment Centre or even an A&E department.

“We’re guiding people at their time of need with our quick and easy-to-use Mobile web App, which uses their symptoms to match them to the right service, closest to them.

“This campaign is all about ensuring people get care locally, as quickly as possible, and via the right professional. It’s also about supporting our NHS this winter; everyone knows that demand on care is at its highest when it is coldest with an increase in respiratory and joint conditions.

“Together, we can look after patients and look after our NHS - we all have a part to play. The Right Care, Right Now campaign and app is one step in the right direction. We have to be open and honest about the need for both the NHS system and patients themselves to change in the face of the tough challenges facing us; including more people living longer with more complex conditions, increasing costs whilst NHS funding remains flat and rising expectation of the quality of care.”

NHS Crawley CCG developed the Right Care, Right Now campaign in partnership with other local NHS organisations. The campaign launched last month on Self Care Week (18-24 November) with personal pleas from Horsham and Mid Sussex community pharmacists to encourage more people to make the most of their local chemist for help with many minor ailments such as coughs and colds, cuts and bruises, conjunctivitis and more.

Now, emergency care nurses from Sussex Community NHS Trust’s Crawley Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) and Horsham Hospital Minor Injuries Unit (MIU) have launched their own online film to raise awareness of just how much our local community hospitals can help you with, and where to go when for the best care, quickest.

Clinical Lead and Emergency Nurse Practitioner at Horsham Minor Injuries Unit (MIU), Judy Dronfield, said: “We see a wide variety of patients presenting with minor injuries; broken bones, sprains and strains, insect bites, eye injuries and many other minor complaints.

“We do have X-Ray facilities on site and the nurse practitioners are all trained in the interpretation of X-Rays.”

Clinical Services Manager at the Crawley Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC), Sue Aston, said: “Here at the Urgent Treatment Centre in Crawley we are open 24/7. We’re not an appointment based service, but if patients are not sure what to do you can always ring NHS 111.

“We have a two-bedded advanced clinical assessment area, a separate paediatric area, our own X-Ray department and a team of specialist doctors and nurses skilled in urgent care.”

Further film clips starring local GPs and A&E consultants from the Emergency Department at East Surrey Hospital in Redhill and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath will follow in December and January.

All the films will be included within the Mobile web App advice section.

If you missed the first instalment, you can catch up now on your local NHS You Tube channel, or you may have spotted the films playing in hospital or GP surgery waiting rooms.