Shutting Edgware Hospital's Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) after 10pm would be depriving patients of a "vital" service, according to one of its overnight doctors.

Dr Helen Vecht denied hospital bosses' claims that patient numbers have dwindled to an average of just ten a night between 10pm and 7am.

She said she saw a minimum of 15 patients a night during the week and at least 20 a night at weekends.

Doctors on night duty frequently arrived to find a full waiting room and would work constantly until 4am with little opportunity for a break, Dr Vecht told the Times Group.

She said plans to shut the UTC at night in order to save £100,000 a year would see staff having to stop admitting patients from 8pm so it could close at 10pm.

"It would put enormous pressure on the evening staff working from 4pm to 10pm who are working pretty much without breaks," said Dr Vecht.

"One of the reasons the night doctor is saddled with so much work is because they are dealing with the backlog from the day."

Dr Vecht, who has worked at the centre for nearly three years, said the figures quoted by Barnet Primary Care Trust (PCT), which runs the UTC, did not take this backlog into account.

And she fears that the pressure from not being able to fall back on the service during the night would see patient care suffer.

"If you know you can give each patient the time you think they need at any time, that is a lot safer than trying to do things fast," Dr Vecht said.

"If you are under pressure to get everything done before the centre closes then I am scared people might cut corners.

"I do think it is a vital service and it is going to be difficult to recruit and retrain staff if the centre closes. People are not going to be wanting to work evenings under huge pressure."

A spokeswoman for Barnet PCT said: "The proposal is to reinvest £20,000 savings in the daytime service which may mean that fewer people wait during the early evening."

Public consultation on the proposals closes in March next year.

December 28, 2001 10:33

IAN LLOYD