Patients at a GP practice in Wales are opposing a health board’s decision to close their surgery, and are ‘considering options’ to save it, including potentially buying its premises.
Earlier this year, St David’s Surgery in North Pembrokeshire announced its decision to return its contract to Hywel Dda University Health Board and GP partner Dr Stephen Riley and his team will stop providing services at the end of next month.
Now the health board has decided that patients will be transferred to other local practices ‘as close as possible to where they live’ as the surgery will close down, and will establish a branch providing nurse-led services for part of the week in St David’s.
St David’s practice staff will be transferring to nearby Solva Surgery and the health board said it has ‘plans in place’ to make internal alterations to the building to ensure it can accommodate the additional patients and staff.
But patients recently gathered at a public meeting to discuss their appeal against the health board’s decision and consider options for the practice’s future.
Campaigner Richard Hayward told Pulse that the option for the community to buy the building was discussed, but that this is ‘still in its early stages’.
He said that the public meeting was told that the practice building ‘might not continue to be available’ as a GP practice because the current owners want to sell it.
He said: ‘Because the contract has been handed back, we have got nothing to put in the building at this stage, even if we got the building.
‘If there is any appetite to buy the building – which seems to be the case – it requires a lot of thought and a lot of planning.’
He added: ‘We are still trying to make contact with our health board, because it is the health board who have made the wrong decision.
‘They could have continued to provide primary care services in the same building but make it part of one combined practice – and that is what they are refusing to do at the moment.’
Following the decision to close the surgery and transfer patients, the health board director of primary care Jill Paterson said: ‘We recognise the strength of feeling in the community and the value which the community attach to retaining services as locally as possible.
‘While the board has decided that the best option to secure stable and sustainable services is to transfer the patients to other neighbouring practices, the board also recognised that a branch surgery should be established in St David’s to address the concerns of those patients transferring to Solva Surgery who are concerned about travelling for appointments.
‘The vast majority of patients including all those living in St David’s will be transferred to Solva Surgery at the end of October.’
The RCGP has warned of a ‘worrying downward trend’ as the number of GP practices in Wales continues to decline.
And the BMA’s Wales GP Committee was given a mandate to ‘urgently consider’ industrial action across general practice to explore ‘what GP practices might consider stopping doing’ in order to remain viable.
Another NHS closure posing as more ‘patient choice’ ?