Carleton GP practice branch to close

A Wyre GP practice will close its branch site in Carleton at the end of July after the owner of the premises chose not to extend the surgery’s lease.

With no alternative available sites nearby, all services currently hosted at the Carleton branch of The Thornton Practice will move to the main practice site at Thornton Medical Centre, in Church Road.

Investment at Thornton Medical Centre will create an additional six clinical rooms. All patients will be able to continue using The Thornton Practice’s main site and take advantage of the services on offer there.

Dr Felicity Guest, senior GP partner at the surgery, said: “We explored multiple alternative sites in Carleton but unfortunately none were suitable for hosting clinical services.

“We appreciate this is not an ideal situation for some of our patients who may rely on the Carleton branch site, and we will work with anyone who will have difficulties accessing our Church Road medical centre to make sure they are able to access services in the future.

“We have already started to develop some additional clinical space within Thornton Medical Centre so there will be no issues with additional demand on the site.”

The practice has already written to all patients to let them know about the branch closure.

Patients who have concerns or feel they could be negatively affected by the closure are invited to attend drop-in sessions which will be taking place at the Carleton branch on Tuesday 9 May, from 9.30am to 11.30am, and Thursday 11 May, from noon to 2pm. The sessions will be supported by volunteers from the practice’s patient participation group (PPG) who are working closely with the practice to help understand the impact of the closure on patients.

Alternatively, a survey has been set up where people can provide any feedback on the closure. This is available at www.thedoctors.co.uk/patient-notice-closure-of-carleton-branch-site