Norfolk: Activist hails deferred vote on GP surgery closure

Rosemary Thew is the chairman of Blakeney Parish Council

A campaigner has welcomed a decision to defer a vote on the future of a GP surgery in Blakeney, Norfolk.

Holt Medical Practice, which runs Blakeney Surgery, has applied to Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board (ICB) to close the site.

The Norfolk and Waveney ICB has voted to delay making a decision until April.

Rosemary Thew, the chairman of Blakeney Parish Council, said: "It is a bit of progress, but it is a bit late and a bit narrower than we would have liked."

Blakeney Surgery, on the north Norfolk coast, closed temporarily in March 2020 during the pandemic and has not offered face-to-face clinical services since.

It currently operates as a drop-in reception and medication collection hub five mornings a week, while patients travel to Melton Constable or Holt for their appointments.

Blakeney has a population of about 700 but its surgery covers areas including Morston, Wiveton, Cley and Langham.

• More than half of GP surgeries say they could shut

Holt Medical Practice has claimed that the cost of running the site was more than it received in funding. It added that the building needed improvements worth £116,000 to bring it up to modern standards.

Ms Thew said: "We have been campaigning for the best part of three years for the reinstatement of the service we had before 2019.

"We feel we have a much worse service than people in Holt or Melton Constable and just because we live in a rural area, we shouldn't be disadvantaged."

A meeting about the closure of Blakeney Surgery was held in August 2023

About 200 people attended a public meeting into the proposed closure in August 2023.

A petition organised by the Save Blakeney Surgery campaign group gathered about 1,500 signatures.

At a meeting of the Norfolk and Waveney ICB on 13 February, the board voted to delay making a decision on the future of the branch until it had consulted further on measures to mitigate the effects of the closure.

The measures would include investigating alternative medication collection points, should the surgery close.

Bigger picture

In its application to close the branch, the partners at Holt Medical Practice said: "We have a responsibility to look at the bigger picture, across the whole practice area and have a duty to all our patients to do the best that we can, with the resources that we have."

The surgery currently runs a medication collection hub five mornings a week

The Norfolk and Waveney ICB said it will reconsider the application at a meeting on 23 April.

A spokesperson for NHS Norfolk and Waveney ICB said: "Following the committee's decision, the ICB will now begin developing plans for this further period of involvement, and further information will be shared in due course.

"In line with the recommendation, the ICB aims to undertake this in early March and to bring the application back to committee for final decision in late April."