There's a further public meeting on Tuesday, July 28 about plans to close the NHS Walk-in Centre in Bitterne – this time at Central Hall in St Mary's.
Take part in CCG's consultation from this link
Southampton City Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), whose preferred option is to shut the Bitterne centre and "re-distribute the current funding to community nursing and community-based care", claims it has to “get the balance right” and make a choice between the two options.
It says keeping it open risks duplicating some services in the area.
The online consultation offers the public an equally stark choice, as well as giving space for further comments. Click the image if you want to participate.
Political groups of various persuasions have campaigned – separately – to keep the NHS facility open. Royston Smith, Conservative MP for Southampton Itchen, said before the election that he'd “commit to ensure that we get more resources on our side of the city, not less”.
Here's his message in April from outside the Walk-in Centre:
Labour, which also campaigned on the issue before the election, has criticised the spending of what it has said was £16 million “on the health service reorganisation that no one wanted... more than ten times the money that would be saved by closing the Bitterne NHS Walk-in Centre,” according to former Labour MP John Denham.
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The Lib Dems and Greens have also spoken out in favour of the centre, while the TUSC have made it a key focus of their campaigning before and since the election.
Meeting & Consultation Details
The latest public meeting is on Tuesday July 28, 2015, 6.30-8pm at Central Hall, St. Mary's Street, Southampton, SO14 1NF
The CCG will also be at the Southampton Pensioners' Forum - Civic Centre, Southampton SO14 7LY on Monday, August 10 from 2-4pm
The consultation and supporting documents are available from the CCG's website at the bottom of their page here. The proposal is here as a PDF, and the online survey is here. The deadline for responses is 5pm on Friday 4 September 2015.