Patients demand answers after fears Tettenhall GP surgery will shut
Concerned patients poured into an under-threat medical surgery to demand answers after fears the practice would shut for good.
Tensions were high as more than 40 residents raised concerns that closing Tettenhall Medical Practice's Wood Road surgery would leave them struggling to see a GP.
It comes after the practice revealed it had been hit by spiralling costs, difficulties in recruiting permanent medics and a national shortage of GPs.
Practice manager Sue Sephton said the team has struggled to recruit a fifth full-time GP and recently-retired medics have refused to return on a part-time basis.
She added: "There's a national shortage of GPs, it's not just us. We have got an advert out there now. We are trying it make it attractive to anyone who wants to join us.
"We are offering patients the opportunity to go to Lower Green. We are certainly not assuming everyone will come.
"Wood Road is majorly under-used by Wood Road-registered patients. The surgery would not cope with bringing the doctors and the staff here."
Staff are looking to shut their Wood Road branch and instead "centralise" medical services at their second base in Lower Street to become more "flexible and efficient".
But pensioners and elderly residents raised concerns during recent drop-in sessions that they would have difficulties walking further to the site - with just one direct bus service running every hour and taxis costing at least £6.
Others complained of the "jam-packed" car park at the Lower Green surgery, which is often used by residents living nearby and leaves patients struggling to find a space.
Mrs Sephton revealed the practice had been trying to "stretch" services across both sites for almost two years and said almost half of patients visiting the Wood Road branch are actually registered at Lower Green.
She added: "We don't envisage that we will have the capacity to do more home visits. There are only a certain number of visits we can do in the day.
"We are looking at staggering the surgeries during the day so that the car parking would also be staggered. At Lower Green, we have got one of the biggest car parks in Wolverhampton."
A 90-day consultation on the proposed closure of the branch, which stopped taking new patients in April, was launched last week and will end on July 28.
More than 4,000 Wood Road-registered patients are now at risk of either travelling further to the Lower Green branch or will be forced to find another surgery.
See tettenhallmedicalpractice.nhs.uk/proposed-branch-closure/
