OKEHAMPTON Town Council has thrown its unanimous support behind a public meeting being held today (Friday, January 22) to discuss the future of the Okement Surgery.

At the full town council meeting held on Monday, councillors put their full support behind the meeting, which has been called by the surgery’s patient participation group on Friday, January 22 at the Charter Hall at 7pm to invite residents to share their views on the potential closure of the surgery. This will be the first opportunity for people to share their thoughts publicly as so far, NHS England has carried out no consultation with patients.

In November NHS England revealed the GP surgery based at the town hospital is to close in April leaving 1,700 patients looking for a new GP on the basis that within the national vision for the NHS, small practices like the Okement Surgery are not sustainable.

The surgery is currently run by the Wallingbrook Health Group on behalf of NHS England under a time-limited contract which will end in April. Patients will then be ‘dispersed’ to Okehampton Medical Centre, Hatherleigh, Bow and North Tawton.

Town mayor Cllr Paul Vachon said: ‘We can call this meeting officially as an information gathering exercise. It is very important we use this meeting as a chance to gather hard evidence of the effect the closure will have rather than anecdotal evidence.’

Cllr Tony Leech, who has helped to organise the meeting, said: ‘NHS England will attend, as will representatives from both Okehampton Medical Centre and Okement Surgery. Mel Stride sadly can not make it due to a prior commitment.

‘We will have a list of speakers, including from parties like the medical centre, to talk about the situation and it will then be open to the public. We want evidence and information from the public to be able to take it forward and present a case to save the surgery.’

In his report to the council, county councillor Kevin Ball said that the subject was on the agenda of the county council’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee meeting held yesterday (January 20). He also noted that there is nothing the county council can do in an official capacity to reverse the decision but that the scrutiny committee would focus on NHS England’s lack of consultation prior to making the decision.

Representatives from NHS England and Wallingbrook Health Group will be in attendance.

What are your thoughts on the likely closure of the Okement Surgery? Contact the Times on our Facebook and Twitter pages, e-mail us at [email protected] or send a letter to 14 Brook Street, Tavistock, Devon, PL19 0HD

Read the full report in today’s edition of the Times.