A national day of mourning and the state funeral of Her Majesty The Queen will take place on Monday 19 September 2022.
An additional holiday has been granted to NHS staff and general practices in recognition of the day being designated an exceptional bank holiday.
NHS Lanarkshire is seeking to achieve a balanced approach to minimising disruption to patient care while acknowledging and respecting staff’s desire to participate in the national day of mourning after working with staff and staff side partnership we will continue to run as many acute hospital services as possible in order to minimise any disruption to patient care. This will include outpatient clinics and elective procedures.
Community based health and social care services that support hospital flow – including district nursing, home support and discharge teams – will also be provided.
Other community services that normally provide a level of weekend cover will offer an enhanced version of this to support patient care.
The vaccination programme will also continue to operate a full service at our vaccination centres.
Heather Knox, Chief Executive, NHS Lanarkshire said: “We recognise the significance of Monday’s Bank Holiday and have worked closely with staff to do what we can to balance giving our staff the opportunity to pay their respects to Her Majesty The Queen but also to be able to continue to provide planned outpatient appointments and elective surgery.
“Many of our staff have kindly agreed to continue to provide planned outpatient clinics and planned elective surgery and I would like to offer my thanks for their dedication and commitment to ensuring planned appointments can go ahead on Monday.
“We are also asking patients to let us know as soon as possible if they wish to reschedule outpatient appointments or their surgery due to take place on Monday. This will allow us more flexibility to release staff on that day.”
Lanarkshire general practices will be closed for the bank holiday and the public are asked to call NHS 24 on 111 for any urgent primary care needs. The NHS Lanarkshire Primary Care Out of Hours service will continue be in operation throughout the bank holiday and some community pharmacies will be open as usual. Once confirmed details will be available on the NHS Inform website at https://www.nhsinform.scot/campaigns/nhs-pharmacy-first-scotland
There will be a number of community services where appointments will be rescheduled and each service will be in touch with individuals to rebook their appointment.
Breast screening appointments for the bank holiday will also be re-scheduled and staff will be contacting those women booked into one of our units to rearrange an appointment as soon as possible.
