THE STROUD Minor Injuries Unit has been praised after having some of the best waiting times in the country. 

The unit based in Trinity Road has been identified as delivering 'excellent and timely care' in a new report in the Health Service Journal, the ‘trade journal’ for healthcare leaders in the UK.

Stroud hospital has kept waiting times to under 1 hr 27 minutes with 14,243 patients having been seen. 

Dr Simon Opher, GP and Chair of Stroud NHS locality said: “This is really impressive - I know how hard the staff have all worked.

"They do a difficult job and they should be justly proud.

"Pressures on NHS staff are huge at this time of year. 

"These figures show just how effective local units can be."

Stroud MP Siobhan Baillie said: "Many thanks to our brilliant NHS staff at the unit who are doing a great job and have some of the shortest waiting times in the country.

"I had to use minor injuries when I fell down some stairs on a constituency visit with my first child.

"They were all excellent and I congratulate them for how they are seeing patients and their hard work.

"Across Stroud district we are lucky to have a good collection of smaller cottage hospitals that are constantly praised by local people."

Mayor Stella Parkes said: "This accolade reinforces the importance of local NHS services serving their immediate community.

"The team at the unit are always so helpful and supportive.

"On behalf of the town I would like to thank them for all that they do."

Chloe Turner, Green Party councillor for Minchinhampton at Gloucestershire County Council said: "I’m so grateful to have such an efficient service here on our doorstep.

"The unit is a brilliant and much-loved resource.

"Only as recently as last Friday, a colleague of mine had to visit the MIIU and she was in and out in an hour, having been triaged and seen by a nurse practitioner.      

"But we shouldn’t take this welcome statistic as meaning everything is rosy in the NHS as a whole, despite the fantastic efforts of its staff who work so hard to keep us safe and well.

"Just across the road from the MIIU, the long-running post-natal care issues have still not been resolved, while the A&E at Cheltenham was closed for a month, meaning just one A&E for over half a million people over the busiest period of the year."

A spokesperson for the NHS Foundation Trust in Gloucestershire said: "Our Minor Injury and Illness Units are particularly busy at this time of year and we are very proud of their performance and the role they play in supporting the wider system and our community’s urgent care needs."

An article in the Health Service Journal has highlighted several Minor Injury and Illness Units in the county as being among the best performing urgent treatment centres (UTCs) in the country.

The report is based on data from NHS England, measuring UTCs attended by more than 10,000 people per year, during the 12 months until September 2023.

Four of the MIIUs are listed as having more than 10,000 attendances, and all are exceeding the national two hour and 15 minute waiting time target, by more than 45 minutes in all cases.

Stroud MIIU, with 14,243 attendances during the year, achieved an average waiting time of 1 hour and 27 minutes

The average wait across 168 UTCs was one hour 59 minutes, while 51 reported average waits longer than two hours 15 minutes.

The NHS standard is that average wait times for UTCs should be less than two hours 15 minutes for walk-ins, and two hours for booked patients.