Media Contacts

Ministry of Health

Communications
250 952-1887 (media line)

Interior Health

Communications
media@interiorhealth.ca
1 844 469-7077

Backgrounders

Penticton urgent and primary care centre

The new Penticton urgent and primary care centre (UPCC) includes the following:

  • Improved access to care through extended weekend and evening hours.
  • People can self-refer for their urgent care needs. Patients can also be referred by community service providers, other health-care professionals and agencies. People are encouraged to visit their own family physician or nurse practitioner where possible.
  • People can also schedule appointments. During busy periods, appointments will be prioritized based on urgency.
  • Services currently being offered through the Martin Street Outreach Centre will transition to the UPCC.
  • Patients requiring laboratory testing beyond simple specimen collection will be provided with requisitions for lab tests to be completed at nearby laboratories.
  • Of the nearly 48,000 people in the Penticton and Summerland region, approximately 7,200, or roughly 15%, of patients are considered unattached to a regular primary care provider.
  • The five top identified conditions in Penticton are hypertension, osteoarthritis, episodic mood and anxiety disorders, asthma and osteoporosis.
  • Approximately 43% of visits to Penticton Regional Hospital’s emergency department in 2019-20 were triaged as relatively low acuity. Many of these visits could be dealt with in alternative settings, such as a UPCC.
  • Total capital costs for the UPCC are estimated to be $2.5 million.
  • The UPCC is 560 square metres (6,028 square feet) and includes a reception, waiting area, exam rooms, consultation rooms, multidisciplinary assessment rooms, office spaces and a multipurpose room.
  • Primary care is the everyday basic health care given by a health-care provider.
  • Urgent primary care is the care that people need within 12 to 24 hours and for when the situation is not a true emergency.
  • UPCCs are part of a comprehensive provincial strategy to transform B.C.'s health system by bringing together and co-ordinating with health-care providers, services and programs to make it easier for people to access care, receive followup care and connect to other services they may need.
  • The Penticton UPCC joins other local primary care clinics and walk-in clinics and provide primary care services to the immediate vicinity and form the South Okanagan Similkameen Primary Care Network.

South Okanagan Similkameen Primary Care Network:

  • The South Okanagan Similkameen Primary Care Network is working to attach 12,000 patients to a regular primary care provider by 2022-23. The network is adding capacity to the 50 physicians in the Penticton area who provide team-based care through an interdisciplinary team of allied health professionals and increase access for people, including people who are frail in the community, those with low and medium complex conditions and those with mild to moderate mental health and substance use challenges.
  • The network will grow to eventually include all the communities in the South Okanagan-Similkameen region.