Introduction
Emergence of urgent care centres
The increasing demand for unscheduled care poses a challenge
for healthcare providers. Policy-driven changes in the
UK have initiated a reconfiguration of traditional models
of healthcare delivery with the subsequent growth of different
models such as minor injury units (MIUs) and walk-in
centres (Department of Health 2006, Audit Commission
2010, Bickerton et al. 2012). One such model of healthcare
delivery is the urgent care centre (UCC) service that
attempts to manage need locally and absorb some of the
workload from typically overstretched emergency departments
(EDs).