GP surgery with 5,000 patients set to close as health bosses defend decision
An NHS care board has defended its decision to close a Staffordshire health centre.
Burntwood Health and Wellbeing Centre is set to be closed by bosses at the NHS’s Integrated Care Board (ICB), forcing almost 5,000 patients to go to other GP practices.
Under questioning from Lichfield District Council’s Scrutiny Committee on Thursday, representatives of the ICB, set up by the government last year to manage local NHS functions and budgets, said they would close the centre in March 2024 when the existing contract with GPs comes to an end.
The patients, using the word they say they must use, will then be “dispersed”.
Vice Chair of the Committee, Councillor Steve Norman, said: “I pointed out that in January, 9.2 per cent of patients with the Darwin Practice, based at Greenwood House, had to wait over 28 days for an appointment.
"That’s 951 patients in one practice in one month and this can get only get worse if, say, 3,000 or 4,000 patients decide to join it.
“I also pointed out that the current planning permission, the third ‘temporary’ permission granted in 2019 for a further 5 years, had the following condition:
"This permission shall be granted for a limited period expiring on September 30 2024 and at the end of this period, the building shall be removed from the site and the land cleared and reinstated to its condition immediately prior to the implementation of permission [in 2008] or to any other use/condition which may be otherwise approved in respect of this site.’.
“Their ‘plan’ is for the new centre to be up and running in 2025, 15 years after Burntwood residents were promised it, but no planning application submitted yet.
"Greenwood House took 2 years and 7 months from planning application to opening so that would mean October 2025 for the replacement.
"It would also mean Burntwood would be without even a temporary health centre for over a year and that’s if planning permission was submitted in the next couple of weeks.”
Chris Bird, Chief Interim Transformation Officer answering for the ICB repeated his claim that they did not need to consult patients using the Health and Wellbeing Centre until after the decision was taken.
