Urgent care center

An urgent care center (UCC), also known as an urgent treatment centre (UTC) in the United Kingdom, is a type of walk-in clinic focused on the delivery of urgent ambulatory care in a dedicated medical facility outside of a traditional emergency department located within a hospital. Urgent care centers primarily treat injuries or illnesses requiring immediate care, but not serious enough to require an ED visit. In the United Kingdom, urgent treatment centres are provided by the National Health Service, which decided in 2019 that all areas of England should be served by a network of urgent treatment centres. In the United States, urgent care centers were first used in the 1970s and have since expanded to approximately 10,000 centers across the country. Urgent care may be categorized as its own branch of medicine, as in New Zealand. An urgent care center is a type of walk-in clinic focused on the delivery of urgent ambulatory care in a dedicated medical facility outside of a traditional emergency department (ED) located within a hospital. Urgent care centers primarily treat injuries or illnesses requiring immediate care, but not serious enough to require an ED visit. They are intended for the treatment of conditions which require urgent medical attention but are not life-threatening, such as broken bones, minor infections, sprains and strains, cuts, grazes, minor burns or scalds, and bites and stings. In the United Kingdom, urgent treatment centres (also called walk-in centres or minor injury units) are provided by the National Health Service, not on a commercial basis. They are intended for the treatment of conditions which require urgent medical attention but are not life-threatening, such as broken bones, minor infections, sprains and strains, cuts, grazes, minor burns or scalds, and bites and stings. Urgent treatment centres are not often located in retail facilities and are generally on hospital sites where they take patients who may not need the facilities of the Accident and Emergency Department, but can be transferred from one to the other if necessary.