Health leaders will face questions from councillors after plans to shut a Burntwood GP surgery next year were unveiled.
Medics based at the Burntwood Health and Wellbeing Centre have been given notice to end their contract to operate from the facility in March 2024.
The move drew criticism from councillors and local residents given no direct replacement surgery is currently operating.
But a spokesperson for the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board (ICB) said the recent opening of Greenwood Health Centre and another new site nearby due for completion in 2025 meant there would be “no impact on patient care”.
Senior figures from the ICB will now attend a meeting of Lichfield District Council’s overview and scrutiny committee.
Vice chair of the meeting, Cllr Steve Norman, said:
“The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care Board is the Government’s successor to the Clinical Commission Groups and is responsible for NHS spend and the day-to-day running of the NHS in the region.
“They had announced that Burntwood’s Health and Wellbeing Centre, which is still in a temporary building by the leisure centre, is to close next March, and the5,000 patients ‘dispersed’ before the new permanent building, promised in 2010, is built.
“This is not a good start to the Government’s new system of local NHS structure and the second reorganisation since Primary Care Trusts were abolished.
“They seem to have ignored their own policy on consultations, but I hope they will be able to explain the reason for this. Iam very grateful for my chair, Cllr Mike Wilcox, who has been following this through and invited representatives of the ICB to our meeting.”
Cllr Steve Norman, Lichfield District Council
The meeting on 16th March will be attended by ICB portfolio director Sarah Jeffrey and executive director Chris Bird.
