Spalding GP Surgery plan labelled 'whitewash'

A councillor has labelled the plans to close a doctor's surgery as a ‘whitewash’.

Coun Stephen Timewell fears that the three sites set to take on patients from the set-to-shut Spalding GP Surgery, based at the Johnson Hospital, will become overstretched.

“I feel it’s a bit of a whitewash on behalf of the NHS,” he said.

“I went to a meeting last week and was very disappointed that the NHS wouldn’t even talk to me. It was quite rude.

“The consensus I’m getting from my residents is that they’re not happy.

“They’re not happy with the way it’s been handled but that’s an investigation I’ll continue with.”

Last year this paper revealed plans to shut the existing GP surgery at the Johnson Hospital had been confirmed by health bosses.

Patients at Spalding GP Surgery will be sent to one of the Munro, Beechfield or Gosberton medical centres.

The hospital facility was placed under threat when the arm of the NHS that ran it - Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) - decided it no longer wanted to run the service.

“The problem is they’ve split all these patients out between surgeries that are already overstretched anyway,” Coun Timewell added.

“So 1,400 patients going to Beechfield, for example, they’re struggling to cope with the ones they’ve got so it can’t get any better.

“I asked the NHS rep about the finances of it and they told me a sum of money had been given to surgeries to help with this.

“My question followed that, I asked would that money be ringfenced to pay for extra staff and they said the money can be spent on whatever they liked.

“Basically we have no record of what that money will be spent on, will it provide extra staff to deal with the extra patients?”

A Lincolnshire ICB spokesman said: “We have reached out to Coun Stephen Timewell directly to discuss.”