Health bosses say they are helping GP practices in a town to use funding to ‘develop their sites’ – shortly after a cramped surgery put out an appeal for help in expanding its site.
Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board made the comment after being questioned by this website over its plans to support practices in Holbeach – which is a growing town with 900 homes earmarked for one estate alone.
Littlebury Medical Centre is reported to be ‘bursting at the seams’ while Holbeach Medical Centre had put out an appeal for patients to help support their bid to expand their site.
Holbeach Medical Centre, Holbeach
The practice has outgrown its current facilities in Park Road and in December put out an appeal asking patients to help them to lobby Holbeach Parish Council about using space behind their site. The parish council has applied for planning permission to run its offices from this site and says it cannot sell land without going through due process.
Holbeach Medical Centre currently has eight rooms which are suitable for seeing patients and on one day had 12 clinicians looking to work from the site – which forced some to work from home.
Proposals to create a health hub in the former Limmings warehouse could have created vital space for Holbeach Medical Centre but this was shelved by the ICB, which stated at the time that it did not present ‘value for money’ and that ‘additional clinical capacity’ had been identified at the current site.
Littlebury Medical Centre, Fishpond Lane, Holbeach
In response to our request to identify what the additional space at the Park Road surgery was, the board stated: “The ICB did not ‘pull the plug’.
“The ICB carried out an options appraisal regarding the extension of GP estate to meet population growth. The appraisal concluded that the development of existing estate would enable the practices to meet population need.
“The practices supported by the ICB team are exploring plans to expand and reconfigure their current practice site.”
We also asked the ICB what its plans are for GP surgeries in Holbeach.
It stated: “The ICB is currently working with Littlebury Surgery to utilise available section 106 funding to expand the practice site. Holbeach Medical Practice is currently scoping options to develop their practice site.
“Healthcare infrastructure is critical to the delivery of safe, high quality clinical services and estate requirements within primary care are a key part of the ICB infrastructure strategic planning.”
It later stated: “The ICB continues to support practices to utilise available funding to ensure they can develop their estate to meet the needs of the local population.”
The ICB has been running a consultation in Stamford to assess what its health needs are and says it is working on plans to do a similar exercise in South Holland.
Are you happy with health provision in this area? Post a comment below…