Concern over future of healthcare in Shoebury (From Southend Standard)

Shoebury health services dwindling

8:00am Monday 4th February 2013 in Echo News By David Trayner

Harry Chandler outside Shoebury House

HEALTHCARE services in Shoebury are dwindling with one centre set to close, another under threat and no local replacement in sight.

NHS South Essex has decided to close Shoebury House, which sees more than 160 patients a week, and move services five miles away to Westcliff.

The primary care trust also warned Shoebury Health Centre in Campfield Road, which houses two GP practices as well as various services, including counselling, midwifery and nutrition, is nearing the end of its life and new premises need to be found.

Residents have been waiting seven years for a new primary care centre in the area proposed, but plans have been put on hold indefinitely.

Independent councillor Mike Assenheim, who represents Shoebury Ward, said: “Shoebury has got the short straw. I’m sorry for those people affected.

“We have got to push for a new centre in Shoebury.”

The 66-odd patients a week who receive treatment for leg ulcers at Shoebury House, almost two-thirds of whom are from Shoebury, Thorpe Bay or Great Wakering, will now have to travel to the new North Road Primary Care Centre, set to open in Westcliff this month.

Roughly 90 patients who are treated for foot problems at the centre each week, 45 per cent of whom are from the east of the borough, will now be treated at the Valkyrie Road Primary Care Centre, which opened last Monday.

Its speech and language therapy service, which is used by about seven children a week, will move to Thorpedene Clinic in Delaware Road.

Harry Chandler, 76, of Leitrim Avenue, Shoebury, who is a member of patient representation group Southend LINk, said: “What we are concerned about is that people are able to get to the new centres.

“The Valkyrie Road centre has better conditions, but clearly I would rather see them in a primary care centre in Shoebury.”