At the Council meeting tonight ( Thursday 24 March) Daniel Hinton asked the following question:
Since the GP at Burma Hills has retired and local residents are being redirected to the Wokingham medical centre, I understand there is talk and promises but at the moment no firm plans to restore GP services at this practice.
I am very concerned about this and have a petition to draw attention to this which has picked up support. I noted the update from the CCG but the date has passed with no GP still in Burma Hills.
Certain Councillors have commented on Facebook that this and the petition was scaremongering and not correct. What is the truth in regards to Burma Hills and is there any update?
Answer from Cllr Charles Margetts, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Wellbeing:
I share your concern about the situation at Burma Hills. This arose because the CCG simply allowed the local PCN to remove the face-to-face GP service with no public consultation at all. This is simply not acceptable. When we complained to the CCG in February, we were given a firm assurance that face to face services would resume at this practice as soon as the vaccination clinic ended. We went back to the CCG last week and have received a commitment that the full range of primary care medical services will restart in April. It is the responsibility of the practice to communicate to local residents the reopening date.
We will continue to watch this situation and apply pressure to ensure this service is fully restored. Therefore, your petition is very appropriate as it represents the just concerns of the 2,000 people on the role at Burma Hills who had their face to face GP service withdrawn with no notice. I can't give you a sensible explanation for the social media comments of a couple of Liberal Democrat Councillors on this issue. Perhaps it identifies the difference between this side of the chamber and that.
We see the withdrawal of a face-to-face GP service effecting 2,000 residents as a serious problem. We see our role as to raise resident issues and obtain a resolution from the CCG. Cllr Sarah Kerr commented that on social media that the practice was never closing and this story was scaremongering.
This was completely wrong.
Imagine how you would feel if you were one of the 2,000 people on the roll at Burma Hills who had their face-to-face GP service withdrawn with no notice and were told this issue was not real. Some of these people will be elderly and frail and travelling elsewhere will be difficult / impossible. The liberals can say whatever they like but I can assure you Mr.Hinton that we will remain committed to focusing on the issues our residents face and demanding solutions to their concerns.
Daniel followed up with a supplementary question:
What does this say about the approach of the CCG towards GP practices in central Wokingham?
We have had this issue at Burma Hills and the continued issues with the Wokingham Medical Centre. Who is responsible for these problems?
Answer from Cllr Charles Margetts, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Wellbeing:
GPs are commissioned by the CCG and WBC has no direct control over them -therefore the answer is the CCG are responsible. However this does not mean WBC will stand idly by and ignore serious problems.
I am concerned about the performance of the GPs in central wokingham. We have some very good GPs delivering great services however the wokingham medical centre is ranked in the bottom 5% in England and we have also had this serious issue at Burma Hills. We have been calling on the CCG for many months to do something about this. We have raised this matter with our local MPs. Due to the lack of resolution we have now raised this matter with the ICS and I have a meeting next week with Dr James Kent the Head of the ICS to take this further. We will not rest until we get an improvement in performance.
The issue with Burma Hills did raise an interesting response from the CCG. In an initial discussion with our officers a senior CCG representative said something along the lines of 'why are Wokingham always complaining about their GPs. GPs in Wokingham are generally good. GPs in Reading are poor but Reading never complain'.
My message to the CCG is simple - we are not Reading and we will continue to praise good GP performance but also to call out poor performance and demand solutions as we know this is important to our residents.
