The NHS has admitted failures when it came to engaging with the local community and Cornwall Council about the closure of Launceston Minor Injury Unit (MIU).

The Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust announced the temporary closure earlier this week, citing a lack of staff to safely run the service over summer. The trust says the unit will reopen “when it is safe to do so,” with a suggested reopening in eight weeks’ time.

At a meeting of Cornwall Council’s health scrutiny committee today (Wednesday, July 23), the trust’s deputy chief executive Adie Perry apologised unreservedly for not making the council aware of the closure. He also said the trust has let down the local community.

Mr Perry gave an “unreserved apology” to the committee, saying the trust hadn’t engaged with the committee “or the wider community” enough on the closure. “That type of failure we really shouldn’t be doing,” he added. “It was a failure to meet your expectations and our own expectations. That’s taken us backwards from where we have been as I like to think we were building up a reputation of being open, honest and transparent.

“We also recognise the impact that this has had – the lack of engagement and the fact that that’s meant a lot of time and effort for everyone else to try and understand what’s going on, to try and allay some of the fears, and again that’s not acceptable.”

He told councillors: “You should have been briefed on the pressures we were facing, you should have been briefed on the options we considered and the risks we were weighing across the patch and we failed on all three of those and it’s not acceptable.”

Cllr Drew Creek questioned the credibility of the trust saying it hoped to reopen the MIU within eight weeks. He said in the spring of 2024 Newquay MIU had its hours reduced for what was supposed to be a period of 12 months. “We are more than 12 months down the road and we still haven’t seen it return to its previous opening hours.”

He was told the trust was going “gung ho” to ensure Launceston MIU opened within the eight-week period.

A report to the council by the trust explained why the Launceston unit had been closed: “As it stands, the staffing levels in the unit are about half their usual levels. This is due to a combination of circumstances including different types of leave across the clinical and operational team. Our primary responsibility is to ensure we provide safe and effective services. Regrettably our available staffing means that this is no longer possible over the summer.

“We continue to explore a range of options to enable us to resume the service offer. Today [Monday, July 21] our chief executive has spoken to MP Ben Maguire who has provided a potentially alternative option, which we are now exploring.”

Launceston MIU sits within the community hospital. The hospital provides a range of services including out-patient clinics and in-patient beds which are unaffected by this decision.

“We are very sorry for the anxiety the temporary closure of the MIU has created locally. We would like to provide assurance that we recognise the importance of the hospital to the community and have every intention of it playing its full part in the delivery of neighbourhood health.”

The report adds: “Unlike emergency departments, which are staffed by consultants, nurses and specialists who have access to the full range of diagnostic technology and facilities, the teams that provide our minor injury services are very small and are nurse-led. They are typically made up of two registered nurses with specialist training and a single healthcare assistant.

“It takes about a year for each nurse to become qualified to work in a minor injury unit. We have a programme of ongoing recruitment and training as experience has shown that we do need to develop our own local workforce.”