A partial victory has been won by local campaigners, following Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s announcement that they have agreed a new two year contract to continue to deliver walk in services at Putnoe Medial Centre. While the services have been retained, the centre will run reduced hours due to capacityissues. Putnoe Medical Centre has recently taken on more than 4,000 patients from recently closed practices.
Alan Streets, Accountable Officer of Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group said:
“The public consultation showed resoundingly that residents in Bedford want to retain a walk in service in the north of the borough.
We have listened and have agreed a new contract, which means that walk in services will continue to be delivered at Putnoe Medical Centre and run in tandem with the new Urgent Treatment Centre on the south wing of Bedford Hospital.
We know that this will be welcome news to those who have campaigned to retain services and engage with us around the future of urgent care services in Bedfordshire.”
Said @Mohammed Yasin MP:
“[While] this is a great result for all those that have campaigned to save the centre from closure…the bad news is that the centre will operate with significantly reduced hours – from 8am until 2pm weekdays instead of until 6pm. The weekend service will remain 9-5. Whilst the reduced service is better than none at all, it will be a blow to people who relied on the service out of office hours and it will presumably mean longer waiting times for patients as the same level of patients try to access a reduced service.
Community pressure has certainly been effective in forcing this U turn and I commend all those involved in fighting the closure including local Councillors Anthony Forth and Jade Uko.”
