Ray Dawe: Improving services across the Horsham district

The district council is responsible for the delivery of a large number of services to you ranging from waste and litter collection, through to building regulation and planning.

What is less known is that while organisations such as the police, the fire and rescue service and the health services have a statutory responsibility for providing their specific services, the district council works alongside these agencies, collaborating closely with them, as ideas emerge for future provision of their services.

In recent years Horsham District Council has worked particularly closely in partnership with local doctors and the NHS to facilitate, enable or provide new or improved surgeries across the district.

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Orchard Surgery in Horsham, Southwater and Steyning have all benefited from new, larger, modern surgeries with extra facilities.

In Storrington, there has recently been the shock closure of Mill Stream Surgery, one of the two village surgeries that left over 4000 people temporarily with no GP service.

The district council moved quickly to support the community by getting together all interested parties and granted emergency planning permission for portakabins on the car park of the remaining Glebe Surgery as well as creating secure parking for the doctors nearby. These swift actions have collectively helped minimise the impact on patients in accessing local healthcare.

The Council has also sought to provide for current and enhanced options for medical needs in the greater Storrington area by purchasing the closed Mill Stream surgery. We are working very closely with local GPs at how best to provide for current and enhanced medical needs for the community and how this could be funded.

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For Horsham town, in June the local Clinical Commissioning Group (composed of GPs and other clinicians) which organises the delivery of NHS services in the Horsham area published proposals for developing medical services with their stated aim being, ‘to support the development of a wider range of primary care services located in our communities in GP Practices and the community hospital as well as at home’.

The idea is to deliver a major new medical centre for Horsham as part of the proposed Broadbridge Heath Leisure centre project by combining three existing Horsham town centre GP practices there. Their proposals include the retention of the largest of the town centre surgery buildings to ensure ease of access for those patients who would prefer to go there.

Horsham residents will benefit by keeping the convenience of a town centre drop-in surgery while getting the bonus of additional medical services locally at a major new medical centre at Broadbridge Heath with the extra specialist treatment and care it will be able to offer locally.

This would certainly seem to be a win-win for Horsham. Not only will a combined Broadbridge Heath Leisure and Health centre improve the links between health services and healthy lifestyles through sport and physical activity, but it will also offer improved access, choice and enjoyment for Horsham residents - altogether an ideal vision for a brighter and healthier future.

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So while the district council is not responsible for providing medical services - it is for the NHS and the doctors to make a decision on how best to provide GP and other services - the council is there to lend any support it can in order to facilitate improved services to our communities.