The Blanche Heriot Unit at St Peter’s Hospital is set to close at the end of September 2017, Get Surrey reports.
The practice manager of an Ashford GP surgery has said that the proposed closure of the sexual health unit at St Peter’s Hospital in Chertsey is “unsafe”.
The Blanche Heriot Unit, which served more than 15,000 patients in 2016, is due to close at the end of September 2017.
Nygel Glynn, Practice Manager at Studholme Medical Centre, spoke to Get Surrey about his concerns in relation to the closure.
He said: “We refer patients to the unit, it is a really crucial centre that is used for sexual health.
“The thing about sexual health is that it is very private and secondly, we have to treat it early on, if we do not have the services available, people will go untreated.
“The workload will fall back onto GPs who are not specially qualified in picking up these things.
“It’s unsafe, diagnoses are going to be missed.
“The Blanche Heriot Unit really is a world-class service, they are an excellent team.”
In 2016 Surrey County Council (SCC) and NHS England undertook a procurement exercise to provide a single integrated sexual health and HIV service.
During this process, Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals (ASPH) decided it was unable to bid to retain the service and the contract was awarded to Central North West London NHS Trust (CNWL).
CNWL will provide three main clinics across the county in Woking, Redhill and Guildford but Mr Glynn thinks that this cover is not enough.
Article from Practice Business, 8 August 2017