Agenda item - Minutes

The Board will review the minutes of the last meeting held on the 15^th March 2016, decide whether these are accurate and if so agree them (copy attached).

69.1.        The minutes of the last meeting held on the 15^th March 2015 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

69.2.        The Chair noted that at the last meeting of the Board, it had been agreed that a response to Mr. Kapp’s question would be provided by NHS England which had been done.  However, for the benefit of the Board and the record, he asked that a copy of the response be included in the minutes:

“Dear Mr Kapp

Wish Park Surgery moved into new purpose-built premises in August 2015 and the practice is confident that this will provide them with the opportunity to expand services for their existing patients and to provide care to more local patients over the coming years.

After the closure of the former Goodwood Court GP practice, Wish Park Surgery confirmed that they would be able to register a number of patients from this practice if they wished to register with them.     Some former Goodwood patients did subsequently register with Wish Park Surgery, although the majority of these patients have been able to remain being treated by Charter Medical Centre in Hove following initial arrangements that were made there for their ongoing care.

Following Wish Park Surgery’s move to new premises, the practice has been working to increase the number of clinical staff employed at the surgery in order to support patient care.  Unfortunately, the practice has not yet been able to recruit an additional permanent GP to work at the practice, but is continuing work to get additional clinical staff in place as soon as possible.

In order to ensure a continued safe and good quality service to their existing patients in the meantime, the practice has informed NHS England that they need to temporarily halt new patient registrations at the immediate time, while work takes place to secure the additional clinical staff necessary to enable the practice to treat additional patients.

The practice is however able to register the children of parents already registered at the practice, or any first degree relatives of patients already registered at the practice who live at the same address.  

The practice is hoping to start accepting new patient registrations again as soon as possible.

NHS England is continuing to liaise with local GP practices in Brighton and Hove following the decision of the Practice Group to give notice on their contract to provide services at five local GP surgeries.     We have determined a plan to secure the future care of patients who use the Brighton Homeless Healthcare Surgery and are continuing work to secure ongoing care for patients who use the other four surgeries affected.   

We are mindful of the need to make sure we respond to this situation in a planned and managed way, which supports sustainability and does not have a detrimental impact on services for other patients in the city.”