A consultation is under way to consider the future of Toftwood Medical Centre.
The contract for the site is due to expire and people are being asked for their views on what should happen next.
You can find out more about the consultation, background and how to share your feedback here.
Healthwatch Norfolk has written to Tracey Bleakley, the Chief Executive of the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board, with its observations.
You can read the letter below.
Dear Tracey,
Re: Toftwood Medical Practice Consultation
I am just writing to you in our role representing the voice of patients in Norfolk to share our response to the consultation around the future of Toftwood Medical Centre.
The objective of the consultation, according to the supporting documentation, is to make sure NHS Norfolk and Waveney have a strong understanding of the impact any closure would have around the care and wellbeing of local people.
Our concern is that the content of the survey would struggle to achieve this outcome.
The survey’s supporting document makes the issues around the Toftwood Medical Centre building’s lease clear, and we appreciate the current situation does not make the centre’s current home an attractive option for long-term investment. We are also aware that there have been some efforts made to find an alternative premises.
Equally, our worry is that the closure is presented through the survey and surrounding documentation as a fait accompli. There is no list of options for the local community to have their say about what happens next.
We feel this does not give them the chance to give well-rounded feedback either as patients in the Toftwood community, or those in the wider Dereham area who may have observations around the impact of closure on other practices and services in the area.
The questions also do not highlight how important the views of those within the other Dereham practices are. Concerns about staffing and resource are something we are hearing both inside and outside the health system daily and there will be worries about the ability of the other practices in Dereham to pick up that extra work.
We are pleased that the survey responses can be collected in many ways through in-person drop-in sessions, filling in paper forms or leaving feedback digitally.
Our overall concern is that the tone, content, and style of this survey could be perceived as a tick-box exercise. Asking ‘What do you think of our proposal to close Toftwood Medical Centre’ is only going to give one answer.
Most people’s knowledge of the health and care sector is also not that strong unless they work within it or have lots of regular contact with it, so the open question about what should happen next is likely to generate unrealistic feedback which is not going to be useful for this exercise.
To sum up, there is a real risk this consultation is being seen as a fait accompli and a way to just show the health system has told people the site is going to close rather than teasing out possible ideas and solutions for those concerned about safeguarding GP practice care and support in the Toftwood area.
We know Toftwood and the wider Dereham area has a strong record of community support, and it may well be that they come up with options for alternative sites or solutions to help, and this current format of consultation will also not help tease out those options.
We would ask that our thoughts would be considered as part of the process around considering the medical centre’s future.
Kind regards,
Alex Stewart
Chief Executive
Healthwatch Norfolk
We have received a response from Tracey Bleakley which is reproduced below:
Dear Alex
Thank you for Healthwatch Norfolk’s response to the consultation. I appreciate your feedback about the consultation process itself and value your expertise in engaging with people. We will consider the points you raise when planning future consultations.
You make a few points about the questions we’ve asked. As you’ll know, it’s a balance between asking too many questions that either put people off from responding or which just result in people repeating themselves, and asking too few questions (or the wrong questions) that don’t give you the information you need as a decision-maker to take an informed decision. The approach we have adopted is to ask two open-ended questions that aim to be easy for people to understand and respond to, but you are right there are other approaches we could have taken.
The first question is intended to make it easy for people to tell us what they think of the proposal – it is not a leading question and so shouldn’t result in only one answer, but should enable people to be able to express their point of view. It may be that a lot of people respond to the consultation with a similar view, but that I think would be more of a reflection of the community’s view of the proposal, rather than the wording of the question. The question also aims to help us understand the potential impact of the proposal so that we can make an informed decision – we will, for example, use the findings to update the draft equality impact assessment that we published alongside the consultation document.
In recognition that people may have other ideas we haven’t thought of, the second question gives people the chance to share their suggestions. This is important, we have explored a lot of options, but there may be others that we have not. We have tried extending, but couldn’t get permission from the landlady to do so. We have looked at relocating the practice, but haven’t been able to find a suitable or affordable premises. This is why there isn’t a list of options in the consultation, as over the years we have tried lots of different approaches. That said, we haven’t made a decision yet and we want to hear people’s suggestions before we do – it is important we have looked at all options and there may be ideas that people suggest through the consultation which we haven’t considered yet.
I would be happy to talk this through with you in more detail if that would be helpful.
Best wishes
Tracey
