Chard Hospital provides a Minor Injury Service to the local population.
Please consider the following information regarding what can and cannot be treated; this may not be an exhaustive list.
In addition, please be advised that injuries sustained over 48 hours prior to presentation cannot be treated as a Minor Injury. Also, this is not a minor illness service. If the problem is not the result of an injury, you can contact us.
The Minor Injury Service is not an Emergency Service.
Examples of what CAN be treated include:
- Minor cuts requiring simple closure techniques (stripping, gluing etc)
- Minor trauma to hands, limbs or feet where a strain or sprain is suspected
- Minor dislocations of phalanges (fingers and toes)
- Removal of foreign bodies
- Minor head injuries where the patient has not lost consciousness
- Bites – human, animal and insect
- Minor burns
Examples of what CANNOT be treated include:
- Minor illness not resulting from any injury or trauma
- Any problem which requires a 999 response
- Any patient who cannot be discharged home after treatment
- Any patient with airway, breathing, circulatory or neurological compromise (unless known to the practice and management plan in place)
- Actual or suspected overdose
- Accidental ingestion, poisoning, fume or smoke inhalation
- Blows to the head with loss of consciousness or extremes of age
- Sudden collapse or fall in a public place
- Penetrating eye injury
- Chemical, biological, or radioactive contamination injured patients
- Full thickness burns
- Burns caused by electric shock
- Partial thickness burns over 3cm diameter or involving
- Injuries to organs of special sense
- Injuries to the face, neck, hands, feet or genitalia
- New or unexpected bleeding from any bodily orifice if profuse
- Foreign bodies impacted in bodily orifices, especially in children
- Foreign bodies deeply embedded in tissues
- Trauma to hands, limbs or feet substantially affection function
- Penetrating injuries to the head, torso, abdomen
- Lacerating/penetrating injuries involving nerve, artery or tendon damage.