Park Health Centre meeting
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I attended a packed meeting of about 100 people at Park Health Centre this evening. Dr Thorpe addressed the patients and explained the difficulties the practice is facing, with big cuts to funding and difficulty in hiring replacement staff. The practice used to receive PMS funding because it is an area of deprivation. The Government in their wisdom have cut this and now fund practices according to the number of patients, with no allowance for the special needs some practices have.
Dr Thorpe asked the patients for help and consideration as the cuts bite. It is vital that people keep their appointments or cancel them if they are no longer needed. It is inevitable that sometimes no appointments will be available and people should then consider alternative services such as the Minor Ailments Scheme (at your local pharmacy), the Walk-In Centre (Rockingham House, 75 Broad Lane, S1 3PB) or Satellite Surgeries. (you may be referred to these if you ring 111 and need to see a doctor or nurse urgently.)
The Practice has a Patients Participation Group which meets at 6.30pm on the third Wednesday of the month. It would be great if patients could support it. Patient Participation Groups are a way of bringing patients and members of the practice staff together to discuss how the services are run and to enable us to look at how we can play a bigger role in creating a healthier community.
Please contact the organisations listed in the above leaflet to lobby for better funding for Park Health Centre.
I spoke briefly at the meeting thanking Dr Thorpe and all the staff for the hard work and long hours they put in. We must appreciate our health workers in such difficult times. I urged people to get involved in Sheffield Save our NHS because it is not just our Health Centre that is threatened but the whole NHS. The Government are gradually privatising it and if we don’t campaign hard to save it we will soon all be paying for our health care like they do in the USA. Those that can’t afford it will then do without. I also urged people to get active politically. We have to get rid of this Government if we want proper funding for the NHS rather than Trident missiles and HS2 trains.
Patients were also asked to leave a review of Park Health centre at this website. https://www.nhs.uk/Services/GP/LeaveReview/DefaultView.aspx?id=41191 There are 5 steps to the review. Make sure you click “submit” when you have finished.
Manor Castle Greens will continue to do all we can to protect Park Health Centre and our NHS services.