Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the closure of Lincoln’s walk-in centre on people’s access to care in (a) Lincoln constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.

Following a review of the users and treatments provided at the Lincoln Walk in Centre (WiC), the West Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) determined that alternative provision, including out of hours general practitioner (GP) access, NHS 111 and Clinical Assessment Service, community hubs, increased primary capacity, and use of local pharmacy walk-in facilities would better meet the health needs of the local population in Lincoln.

The CCG worked in partnership with Lincolnshire Community Health Service, which provided the WiC services, to ensure an effective plan was in place to facilitate transition. This plan incorporated the introduction of triage at the WiC to direct the public to appropriate, alternative provision. The 33 GP practices within the CCG area have arrangements in place to support any increased demand following the WiC closure, including provision of nearly 200 additional GP appointments per day across the area. As a safeguard, the CCG is also supporting additional GP out of hours provision at weekends during March to mid-April, to enable the new service to become established. Since the weekday closure of the WiC, West Lincolnshire CCG report no adverse impact.