North Harbour Medical Group: Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt launches survey and says patients should be able to stay at surgery on same site

Penny Mordaunt has urged the integrated care board to give everyone a full choice of replacement practices after discovering people at the North Harbour Medical Group had only been offered a limited list of re-registration options.

This has prompted concerns that many would not be given the choice of the Wootton Street surgery because it is a branch of the Drayton practice.

‘Commissioners often talk about “patient-centred healthcare”,’ she said. ‘What could be more important than the accessibility of their GP surgery and community health services?’

In a bid to be able to raise the issue with the integrated care board, she has launched a survey that, she said, would help gather evidence about the number of people who would choose the surgery had they been given the choice.

TAKE THE SURVEY: MP wants to hear patients’ views

Personalised letters were sent to all of the soon-to-close practice’s patients last week listing alternative surgeries they are in the catchment area of, based on their registered postcode

People living in Portsmouth have only been offered practices in Portsmouth although they can request to register with one outside the city’s boundaries if they prefer.

Those living outside Portsmouth but within Hampshire will be automatically allocated a practice near their home.

But Ms Mordaunt said this postcode-based system meant many would not be given the choice of a surgery next door to Cosham health centre.

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‘This might suit some people very well,’ she said. ‘However, there will be some patients who will want to continue going to the North Harbour site, or near it, to visit their GP or get community services.’

Meetings have been held with health secretary Steve Barclay and the integrated care board to look at the possibility of expanding Wootton Street, including the potential to use a ‘high quality’ temporary building in its car park.

She said this would benefit people in Cosham but also prepare The Drayton Surgery for its planned transfer into the proposed new purpose-built GP surgery building on the nearby Highclere site. She added that Mr Barclay was now hoping to have the new surgery operational by spring next year.

‘If there is strong support for retaining GP and community services on the North Harbour site it will help me make the case that the Drayton practice should have the option to expand the work it does from the Wootton Street site,’ she said.

Integrated care board managing director Jo York said patient preferences would be taken into account but there were issues around capacity of individual surgeries that needed to be considered.

‘All patients have been given a choice of which alternative practice they will move to – which is dependent on where they live and the area in which a practice operates,’ she said. ‘It means that patients may have different lists of alternative practices.

‘Giving our residents choice of which practice they move to is something we’re working hard to achieve but have to do so within certain parameters, including existing practice boundaries and the available capacity of each practice.’

The board said it expected all transfers to be completed by April.