Grampound surgery: doctors have submitted application to the CCG to close Grampound

The doctors at Probus Surgery have submitted to Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) their proposal to cease providing services from the building in Mill Lane, Grampound. We have been unable to see a copy of the specific proposal put forward by the doctors. However, we understand that no provision is planned within the village of Grampound.

Within the CCG, the primary care operational group (PCOG) will first consider the proposal and will then put forward its recommendation for what should be done. The earliest that this could happen would be 26 September, at which time the proposal would be published on the CCG website. The final decision will be made by the primary care commissioning committee (PCCC) at its meeting on 8 October.

However, this timetable could slip if the PCOG does not accept the doctors’ proposal and asks them to revise it.

Thank you to all those who completed my residents’ survey and signed the parish council petition asking for facilities to be retained within the village.

I am deeply disappointed that this situation has arisen without residents of Grampound being forewarned or properly consulted. I will continue to lobby the CCG to try to maintain a decent level of service for patients within the parish. I have not given up on this issue.

On 23 August, I emailed the CCG as follows:

"Dear Vivienne

Further to previous emails and conversations about the potential closure of Grampound branch surgery, I wish to confirm my thoughts on the matter and I should be grateful if you would pass this on to the PCOG prior to its meeting on 25 August. 

The Grampound branch surgery is a facility much valued by the residents of Grampound and the wider rural area. 

The partners of the Probus Surgery practice made a unilateral decision to terminate the lease on the premises in Mill Lane prior to any notification to the public of their intentions. Whilst the freeholder of the premises had the right to sell the property, any new owner would have been obliged to honour the lease held by the doctors until September 2021 and, if the doctors had expressed an interest in continuing in occupation beyond then, it might have been possible to enter into a new lease. As a consequence of the doctors’ action, their lease will now terminate in December 2020.

It is clear that the doctors have told the new owners of the property that they have no intention of seeking a new lease and, as a consequence, the new landowner is pressing ahead with a planning application to demolish the building and to erect flats on the site.

The partners have not adequately consulted the local residents about the implications of closure of the Grampound facility. The partners sent out by mail a survey across the whole of its area in January 2020. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it is evident that many households did not receive the survey. Anecdotal evidence from residents in the Grampound area indicate that only about half of households received the correspondence from the doctors although they did become aware of it from others and some who had not received the survey in the post did complete a form at the surgery.

On 15 February, I wrote to the practice asking that they hold a public meeting in the village to listen to local residents’ views. The doctors have refused to hold a public meeting.

In the doctors’ letter accompanying its survey, it was stated that the site at Grampound does not meet current standards required by the Care Quality Commission. However, I can find no public record of a CQC report that says that the building at Grampound does not meet standards. The CQC did criticise in respect of Grampound Surgery the management of medicines but this was to do with procedures rather than the physical aspects of the building. It was commented that there was no CCTV at Grampound but that merely meant that no lone working was carried out there. It may well be that, if the doctors were to continue in Grampound in the longer term, it might be prudent to invest in some modernisation of facilities, but the CQC did not say that this must happen.

The doctors have refused to release to me a copy of the proposal that they have put to the CCG for closure of Grampound. However, my understanding from a conversation with Dr Ball is that they are not proposing to provide any alternative facility within Grampound (other than to provide a drop-off of medications to the Grampound Community Shop, something that they do currently). This means that the public will only find out exactly what is proposed when the papers are published on 26 September prior to the PCCC meeting on 8 October. 

I also understand from Dr Ball that they may have provided you with statistics that purport to show that few people will be disadvantaged by the closure of Grampound Surgery. This is based upon the fact that most of the patients who had an appointment at Grampound during a period of some months pre-Covid had also had an appointment at Probus during the same period. This, according to the doctors, shows that those patients were perfectly capable of accessing Probus Surgery without any problem. However, it gives no indication of why the patients had an appointment at Probus - I suspect that it was because they could not get an appointment at Grampound and were faced with having to find a way of getting to Probus if they wanted to see a doctor. There is no evidence that these patients were happy with this arrangement and had not been put to trouble in order to see the doctor at Probus. 

I carried out my own survey of residents of the parish of Grampound with Creed. A leaflet and hard copy survey form was hand delivered to every household in the parish (approx. 380 households) and an online Survey Monkey facility was set up. See http://www.bobegerton.info/grampoundsurger1.html.  I have previously sent Helen Charlesworth-May the results of that survey, but I attach a summary report again for your information. I received 80 responses (representing a 21% return rate - above average for this type of household survey). As you will see, overwhelmingly, the comments were that residents were unhappy with the proposed closure of the branch in Grampound and they felt that this would disadvantage in particular elderly and vulnerable patients.

Overall, I feel that the doctors have not consulted their patients adequately about the proposed closure of Grampound and have acted precipitately in giving notice on the lease at Grampound. I ask that the PCOG requires the doctors to think again about what services they can and should offer in Grampound and to reject the proposal as it currently stands.

Many thanks.

Bob Egerton"

August 2020