It is vital that we save the GP Walk-In Centre at Eastbourne station. This facility offers visitors, and residents of Eastbourne, alike a chance to access the support of a GP when they need it and in a central location. GP services have become increasingly difficult to access in recent years and that trend is likely to continue. The area is under the process now of setting up Primary Care Networks and there is little reason to feel anything other than fearful that accessing a GP will become much harder once these are established.
But we also have a large homeless population, many of whom will have been refused if they have tried to register with a GP. Many of this homeless population will also have physical and/or mental health problems and the Walk-In Centre is vital for them.
One of the claims are CCG is making to justify the closure is that they may soon be opening an Urgent Treatment Centre at the hospital, which is nearly two miles away from the centre of town. Many visitors to the town won’t even know about this Centre or where the hospital is. For people on low incomes, the cost may mean they simply don’t access help and become more seriously ill as a result. This move is likely to place more pressure on our already struggling A&E units and is desperately unfair on the more vulnerable people in our community.
Our CCG is attempting to justify the Walk-In Centre’s closure by making claims about how we feel and what we are experiencing relative to GP services. I suspect these claims are far from an accurate picture. For this reason, I have set up our own survey of the population. Please complete this survey and share with the people you are in contact with.
I have also set up an online petition against the closure. Please do sign this and share again.
We will be organising some campaign events in the town centre where we will be collecting signatures and asking people to complete the survey. Further details will be posted on the website, on Facebook and on our Twitter account. Please do follow us on social networks and sign up to our mailing list to keep up to date with news.
