Eastbourne Station Health Centre will shut down in August.
Health bosses have confirmed it will close completely by the end of August.
There had been a public outcry over the decision.
The Governing Body of NHS East Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group agreed proposals to close the walk-in facility at Eastbourne Station Health Centre (ESHC) and support the registered patients to move to a new surgery (Victoria Medical Centre) at a meeting on 9 December 2020.
The decision was then endorsed at the East Sussex Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) meeting on the following day (10 December).
Here’s the CCG: “Since this decision was taken we have continued to work with our local partners to address the detailed recommendations made by HOSC and the feedback we received from the public consultation.
When the decision was made to close ESHC we stated that our intention was to move all of the registered patients from ESHC to another local GP practice – Victoria Medical Centre (VMC) – only once VMC’s town centre branch surgery was established, as people told us that continued provision of town centre access is important.
Following the move of the registered patients to VMC, we also agreed we would continue to commission the walk-in aspect of the service at ESHC for a short period.
We have kept this matter under constant review and have engaged closely and regularly with local partners and providers.
As a result we have concluded that moving the registered patients to the Victoria Medical Centre at the end of August 2021, when the entire ESHC contract concludes (the GP practice and the walk-in aspect), rather than an earlier date as we first intended, would be of greatest benefit to patients and local people.
When our decision making business case was presented to our Governing Body and HOSC the COVID-19 pandemic was well established, but the vaccination programme was not.
Our hospitals and GP practices have since been instrumental in delivering this programme, and in Sussex more than one million people have now received their vaccinations so far – an incredible achievement.
Victoria Medical Centre has played a vital role in delivering the COVID vaccine to local people and continues to do so. It has done this at the same time as running its normal GP practice services in a safe and accessible way, taking into account the social distancing and infection control measures necessary.
As the vaccination programme continues to make good progress we expect that by the end of August even more of our adult population will have been vaccinated.
Allowing extra time for the registered list to transfer to VMC will help staff previously deployed to the vaccination programme to return to their regular duties at the GP practice.
The extra time will also allow VMC’s new medical centre, currently nearing completion in Victoria Drive, and the town centre branch surgery in the Beacon shopping centre, more time to establish themselves, providing reassurance for patients and local people.”