Thursday 13 July 2017. Philip Hammond MP has praised the local NHS and local emergency services – particularly fire service and police colleagues – for a well coordinated and efficient response to the devastating fire at Weybridge Community Hospital on Tuesday evening. Mr Hammond visited the site on Wednesday afternoon accompanied by Stephen Cass, Chief Executive of the area’s NHS community healthcare provider, CSH Surrey, and local fire and police officers leading the incident.
Stephen Cass, CEO, says: “Thank you to everyone who has supported the swift response to this devastating fire and helped us to get Weybridge’s community health services back up and running so quickly. Our staff have worked incredibly hard with other agencies and partners to ensure local people still have access to health services, and have contingency and longer term plans in place.”
Update on Out of Hospital (community) services run by CSH Surrey
Adult health services
- Walk-in centre services: walk-in centre services continue to be offered at both Woking and Ashford Hospitals.
- X-ray (radiology): people with GP referrals for an x-ray need to go to Walton Community Hospital. Patients who go to the walk-in centres in Woking and Ashford and require x-rays will be able to have them on site at these centres.
- Respiratory service: we are relocating the Tuesday 18th July clinic and will advise booked patients directly about the new venue. The service number (01483 782 863) has been temporarily diverted. People can leave messages and the team will call them back
- Continence service: we are relocating the Monday 24 July clinic and will advise booked patients directly about the new venue. The service number (01483 782 890) has been temporarily diverted. People can leave messages and the team will call them back
- Heart failure service: we are relocating the Thursday 20th July clinic and will advise booked patients directly about the new venue. The service number (01483 782 879) has been temporarily diverted. People can leave messages and the team will call them back
- Phlebotomy (blood tests): patients with appointments today have been contacted to cancel their appointments and should contact the GP practice and once the service is re-established.
Physiotherapy service (run by Ashford & St Peters): all appointments from today that were planned for Weybridge are taking place in other locations and patients have been contacted directly.
Children's health services
- Health Visiting: the baby clinic that is normally run at Weybridge Hospital is being held at the Weybridge Sure Start Children's Centre, The Churchfield Pavilion, Churchfield Road, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 8DB until September. Appointments slots will be offered
- Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy: appointments are being moved to Weybridge Sure Start Children's Centre, The Churchfield Pavilion, Churchfield Road, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 8DB for the foreseeable future. The team administrators have called all families who have booked appointments to advise them of the change of venue
- School nursing enuresis (night time bedwetting) service: the team is operating out of Walton Health Centre, Rodney Rd, Walton-on-Thames KT12 3LB for the foreseeable future. Families have been contacted directly to advise them of the change of venue
- Paediatric physiotherapy service: team relocated but no clinics or services were run from the hospital, so no impact on families
- Occupational therapy service: team relocated but no clinics or services were run from the hospital, so no impact on families.
Update on GP services
For booked appointments, practices will be calling patients to confirm whether appointments are able to go ahead as planned; for those less urgent appointments, practices will rebook appointments at a later date, and will be operating a triage system to determine patients with the most need. Both practices are continuing to offer repeat prescriptions; please only urgent prescriptions at this time. Please try to use alternative services wherever possible; you can get help and advice from NHS 111, your local pharmacist or if you need to see a healthcare professional you can use the Walk-in services at Woking or Ashford Hospitals. We would urge people to think carefully about attending A&E unless you have a real emergency as services are likely to be particularly difficult during this time.
In the meantime, patients from both Church Street and Rowan Tree GP practices are still able to call their GP practice using the practice’s usual telephone number (which are being diverted to temporary telephones). However, as both practices are only able to run a skeleton service for the next few days, we would ask patients to only call if you need urgent care.
The CCG has now secured more permanent accommodation for both practices in Burwood Ward at Walton Hospital, Rodney Road, Walton on Thames for the foreseeable future. Over the next few days this will continue to be a more limited service (including wound care), with practices expected to be offering most services as normal from early next week.
Acting Deputy Accountable Officer for North West Surrey CCG, Karen Thorburn comments: “The way in which everyone has responded to this terrible incident has been tremendous; this has been a real system-wide response with colleagues from all agencies – health, local authority, police, the fire service and others – all working closely together to ensure the safety and reassurance for both patients and local residents. My thanks to all our partners in helping us manage this incident efficiently and ensuring patient services continue to run as closely to normal as possible. In particular, colleagues from our two affected GP practices and their staff really pulled out all the stops to see ‘pop-up’ GP surgeries for those most in need running in several locations across the town. CSH Surrey, responsible for adult community health services in North West Surrey including local Walk-in Centres, and Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals both put immediate contingency plans into place to re-provide urgent services.”