Agenda item

NHS Brent has provided the Health Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee with an update on the Burnley Road GP Surgery. Members will be aware that the future of the practice, which provides GP services to around 325 homeless people, as well as 2,700 registered patients, is unclear. The practice is currently managed by Brent Community Services, but it is looking to relinquish management control of the service. An application from the practice to take on the contract for the service has been rejected by NHS Brent, which is now looking at other options for the service.

Summarising the report already circulated, Jo Ohlson (Director of Primary & Community Commissioning, NHS Brent) advised that Brent Community Services would no longer manage the Burnley Road GP practice and that the future of the practice was not currently clear. An application from the practice to run the service had been considered but rejected. She explained that there were currently three options being considered: the dispersal of the patient list to other local practices; a tender on the open market; or a closed tender to GP practices within the borough. In addition, the future of the service provided to homeless people through the practice would also have to be considered.

Jo Ohlson continued by explaining that councillors and patients’ groups had expressed concern over the summer about the uncertain future of the practice. They had clearly stated that they did not want dispersal of the patient list to take place, and that they wanted GP services to continue to be delivered from the Willesden Centre for Health and Care.

Councillor Jones (Willesden Green ward) explained that she was a patient at the surgery which had been moved first from Burnley Road to Pound Lane and then to the Willesden Centre for Health and Care. She went on to say that patients’ groups had had to press for meetings on the proposals to be held at a location in the Willesden area, and she reiterated that patients felt that they would prefer for the surgery to remain at the Willesden Centre for Health and Care.

Residents expressed their agreement with this last point, and they expressed their concern at the uncertainty of the future of the practice and the fact that, five years after the practice had been moved to its current location, a new transfer of patients was being considered. Councillor Butt (Tokyngton ward) reiterated that, although three options for the future of the practice were being considered, patients had clearly expressed their preference for the practice to remain where it was. In response, Mark Easton (Chief Executive, NHS Brent and Harrow) advised that a transfer of patients to another location would only take place if the proposal to disperse them to other surgeries was agreed; it was envisaged, however, that GP services would continue to be delivered from the current location if one of the other two options was implemented.

Mansukh Raichura (Chair, Brent Local Involvement Network) expressed concern that the practice could close in March 2011 before the new arrangements which would be agreed in November could be fully implemented. Jo Ohlson replied that the practice would only close in March 2011 if the proposal to disperse the patient list was implemented, in which case alternative arrangements would be made before the closure took place.

Councillor John (Stonebridge ward) thanked residents for attending the meeting and for expressing their views so clearly. She asked for clarification about the perceived timescale for decision making. Jo Ohlson replied that residents’ views would be included in the Options Appraisal Paper which would be considered by the PCT’s Executive Team at the end of October and that a decision would be taken by the Board of NHS Brent on the future of the practice in November. She added that, if it were decided that an open tender process should be undertaken, patients would be involved in the selection of tenders.

RESOLVED:

that the Health Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee recommend that NHS Brent carry out an open tender process for the Burnley Practice registered patients service, to ensure that the service continues to be delivered from Willesden Centre for Health and Care and to avoid dispersal of existing patients in an area which already has fewer GPs per head of population than other areas of Brent.