Help shape Council’s view on planned closure of medical practice

Published Monday, 9th August 2021

People in Hartlepool are being invited to attend a special Hartlepool Borough Council meeting to help shape the Council’s response to the proposed closure of a town medical practice.

Hartfields Medical Practice – which is based at Hartfields Extra Care Village – has been temporarily closed since mid-March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The McKenzie Group, which runs the practice, will be applying to NHS Tees Valley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to close the practice permanently to bring services together at its other sites, Wynyard Road Medical Centre, McKenzie House, Throston Medical Centre and Victoria Medical Centre.

To inform this application process, the McKenzie Group is undertaking a period of patient and stakeholder engagement until Sunday 29th August to gather people’s views and their experiences during the temporary closure of the branch and ensure they understand what is planned.

As a result, Hartlepool Borough Council is holding an additional meeting of its Audit and Governance Committee on Friday 27th August at 10am to formulate the Council’s own response to the stakeholder engagement.

Members of the public are welcome to attend this meeting to contribute their views, but places are limited and are available on a first come, first served basis, and those wishing to attend should phone (01429) 523193 or (01429) 523013 by midday on Friday 13th August.

Councillor Rob Cook, Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee, said: “We would very much like to hear people’s views to help form Council’s response to the stakeholder engagement. If they would like to attend the meeting, they need to register with us before 12 noon this coming Friday 13th August.”

All patients over the age of 16 years registered with McKenzie Group practice have been invited by McKenzie to take part in an engagement survey, details of which can be found at www.mckenziegrouppractice.co.uk and www.wynyardandhartfields.co.uk