Independent Nurse: Nurse referral centre saves pounds 2m.

A team of nurse practitioners in Shropshire is saving the NHS almost pounds 2 million a year, by diverting hospital referrals to community services.

The Shropdoc Care Co-ordination Centre (CCC) is staffed by 15 nurse practitioners, who handle up to 70 urgent care referrals from GPs every day. They have successfully diverted 21 per cent of these away from hospitals, saving around pounds 34,000 a week.

CCC says this could rise to 40 per cent if care was redesigned to bring more services into the community.

The service was commended in last week's NHS Alliance Urgent Care awards, where it won the 'Beyond Out of Hours' category. A spokeswoman …