PATIENTS of a Glen Road GP surgery will have to travel across town for appointments from next week after a sign appeared outside saying the practice branch is moving to North Belfast.

The sign on the railings of the Crossin and Higgins surgery, which is situated next to St Matthias' church, tells people turning up at the building: “The practice will operate from our main site Carrick Hill Medical Centre."

The surgery has been struggling with an increasing workload and has tried to recruit GPs and support staff in an effort to cope – with no success.

The Glen Road practice, which has recently seen a reduction in services, has over 3,000 patients on its books. Local Sinn Féin MLA Aisling Reilly said in a message on Facebook that “patients and political representatives have not been consulted” on the decision to move.

Her Sinn Féin colleague, Councillor Rónan McLaughlin, told the Andersonstown News that members of his party will be meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the move and will also speak with the GP Federation and the Belfast Trust about the implications of the move for West Belfast patients.

“There has been a reduction of services when it has been operating, I think it initially went to three days and then was reduced to two days," he said. "Now with this new sign it appears that all services have been moved over to Carrick Hill which obviously isn’t ideal considering it’s a very well used surgery in the area. 

“To be honest, it’s crucial to try and save this local service. It’s a vital resource in the area. Certainly, a move like this isn’t good for West Belfast whatsoever.

“The information we have is very little at this point. We’re pulling together myself, Aisling Reilly MLA, Paul Maskey MP and Órlaithí Flynn MLA tomorrow morning on it. We’re going to be talking to the GP Federation and we’re going to be talking to the Belfast Trust. At the minute we’re just trying to find out more information because putting a sign on a surgery for us isn’t proper notification or any degree of consultation and certainly as a party we’re going to be opposing any such move.”

Ms Reilly said on Facebook: “A sign has just appeared on the surgery on the Glen Road advising that the surgery will be operated from its main site in Carrick Hill. This surgery has over 3,000 patients. Vulnerable and sick patients cannot be expected to venture over to Carrick Hill."

In a letter to local councillors and MLAs on Thursday afternoon, the practice wrote: "We are writing to update you on the closure of the Glen Road Surgery at 1a Norfolk Parade, Glen Road in West Belfast. Due to the practice dual locations of Carrick Hill and Glen Road, the practice has for the most part served patients from North Belfast and West Belfast Federation areas. All patients registered with each site, irrelevant of their address, had access to General Medical Services (GMS) at that surgery.

"Prior to the pandemic, the practice was struggling with increased workload and increased patient demand but was managing to continue to offer GMS at both sites. In recent years the practice has been facing additional challenges due to the shortage of GPs working in the practice, and more recently supporting staff including administration, pharmacists and nursing staff. Despite multiple advertisements, both locally and nationally, we have been unable to recruit new GPs. The practice has been working with a shortfall of GPs for some years and we have the impending retirement of two GPs in the next five months. 

"In the past six months, we have had to relocate GMS solely to the Carrick Hill site on a Monday, Thursday and Friday only. 

"The SPPG [Strategic Planning and Performance Group of the Belfast Health and Social Care Board] declined the practice’s application to temporarily close new patient registration.  The practice has applied for a reduction to our boundary area.  We have unfortunately had to request all of our patients registered outside the boundary to register with a practice local to them. The shortage of GPs has required us to reduce the non-essential services we previously offered to patients, eg we no longer offer a minor surgery service at the practice.

"This weekend, we were informed that unfortunately one of our existing GPs will now be off on extended leave due to sad personal circumstances.  This prompted an emergency meeting on Wednesday 2nd November 2022 with the SPPG, LMC [Local Medical Committees] and partners and resulted in an agreement to regroup some of our services to Carrick Hill Medical Centre effective from Monday 7th November 2022. Patients who need face to face consultation will now be seen in Carrick Hill Medical Centre only as this will enable us to continue to provide safer personal care.  We are in the process of applying to close the branch site, the Glen Road Surgery. 

"The practice continues to advertise for GPs across a number of different forums. Other GP practices in Northern Ireland are facing a similar situation as a result of the crisis in primary care." 

"We apologise for any disruption or inconvenience that these changes may have on our patients.  The practice has a long history of delivering primary care to the patients in North and West Belfast and our aim is to continue this tradition."