Minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Lamb, Stokes, Sharp, Shabbir and Fower.  Councillor Sandford was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Fower, Councillor Todd was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Lamb, Councillor Harrington was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Sharp and Councillor Jamil was in attendance as substitute for Councillor Shabbir.

No declarations of interest were made.

The Chair welcomed everyone to the reconvened meeting and asked that those people wishing to speak from the public gallery identify themselves.

Dr Watson, Senior Partner at 63 Lincoln Road surgery was invited to speak. Key points raised were:

• The surgery had a long established history going back over 100 years.
• List size was 11200 patients, 30% of whom lived in Central, Park and East Wards.
• There were eight GPs’ seeing patients mainly at Lincoln Road and also at the branch surgery in Werrington.
• There was a high proportion of elderly patients and in addition provided medical services to the Woman’s refuge, the homeless and those with substance misuse problems.
• 67% of new registrations were from ethnic minorities such as asylum seekers and socio economic migrants.
• It was a busy inner city practice providing services to the vulnerable hard to reach groups from sub standard premises which were not fit for purpose.  They would not meet health and safety standards and infection control standards in the years to come.  Recently one of the ceilings had collapsed and there was a problem with sewage backing up and two elderly patients had fallen down the narrow stair well sustaining leg fractures.  There was no lift on the premises
• If Option One were adopted this would eventually result in the closure of 63 Lincoln Road. 11200 patients including the hard to reach and vulnerable groups would have to be relocated to alternative providers and the capacity and facilities to cope did not exist.  Therefore Option One should be rejected.
• Option Two would deliver new premises but would be a short term solution and would not future proof care for residents across the City and patients of 63 Lincoln Road. 
• Option Three fully resolved the key issue of patient access, including the disabled and offered an opportunity to provide for the health care and welfare of patients and residents across the City. 
• Dr Watson requested that the Commission support Option Three.

Observations and questions were raised and discussed including:

·         If Option Three were to be adopted what proposals do you have for access on Saturdays and Sundays and would this be only for people registered in your practice.  Dr Watson advised that under Option Three there would be a guarantee of increased access for patients registered at that practice at the weekends but exact timings could not be determined now.  TheInterim Director for Primary Care reminded Members that the GP out of hour’s service operated seven days a week therefore the option of seeing a GP on a Saturday or Sunday was already in place.

·         How would someone access a GP at the weekends?  The out of hour’s service was run from the Thorpe Road Walk in Centre.  A patient would ring the out of hours service and they would be triaged and it would then be determined if they needed to see a GP or a nurse. This was also the practice during in hours service.

·         Why have you  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Due to the time of day and length of the meeting Items 6 (Review of Work Undertaken in 2010-2011 and Work Programme for 2011-2012) and 7 (Forward plan of Key Decisions) on the Agenda were noted as read.