Update on Lower Stoke Branch Official Closure February 2025
Following a rigorous review of our engagement and application process, we are pleased to inform all stakeholders that the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB) has approved the official closure of the Lower Stoke Branch.
Please be assured that this decision will not impact the services you receive from us. Since the Lower Stoke Branch has been physically closed since 2020, all patients have continued to receive care from our main site or other suitable healthcare providers. You will continue to receive the same level of service as you have over the past five years.
We sincerely appreciate the engagement and feedback from patients, stakeholders, and the local community throughout this process. If you have any further queries or concerns, please contact the practice.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding.
Aug 2024: Consultation Summary & Engagement Submission
Feb 2024 – Apr 2024: Engagement with Lower Stoke Parish Council
Feb 2024: Engagement with local press and responding to their concerns. This communication highlighted that an engagement was required with the Lower Stoke Parish Council. Contact initiated.
18th Jan 2024: Engagement with Patients and stakeholders has been completed. Patient Participation Group meeting has taken place. We have reached the end of the engagements. The application has been lodged.
Jan 2024: Upcoming Events
- Patient Participation Group Meeting
- End of Engagement
- Lodging the application for Branch Closure
Dec 2023: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
We would sincerely like to apologise for the inconvenience the closure of Lower Stoke Branch has caused you. The Lower Stoke Branch has been physically closed since 2020, on the authority of the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board. This was in response to various factors including the COVID19 Pandemic as well as the distributive restrictions of local primary care resource in combination with patient and public engagement.
It was understood that this branch served only approx. 5 % of patients prior to its closure, operating within a limited scope of hours and services.
The Lower Stoke branch continued to remain closed for the past circ. 4 years. This has resulted in patients previously using this branch to either move to the closest Practice to their home or to commute to the main site at Hoo. It is understood that this transition had already taken place by the time of the branch closure.
Since the Lower Stoke Branch has remained closed for the past 4 years, it has not been refurbished to the required standards to deliver safe services to the local population. As a result, it is believed to not be a safe environment to operate a health service on the premises as per the stringent CQC regulations required to be met by all healthcare providers.
Since COVID, there has been a national drive to adapt to provide better ways of providing patient services which is utilising online consultation tools, since this breaks the physical attendance barrier for the patients. As a result, we have been working hard to increase the online consultation utilisation at the practice which we are hoping is providing beneficial to the local population that has chosen to remain registered as our patients post the Lower Stoke Branch Closure.
This application and engagement with the respective patients and the public has been around the ‘official’ closure of the Lower Stoke Branch, especially since the branch has been ‘physically’ closed since 2020. Rest assured, local health services have undertaken informal options appraisals. One of these scenarios was to re-open the Lower Stoke Branch however it is believed that this would incur unsustainable resource burden, not only with staffing levels but also with efforts to refurbish it to meet the minimum CQC requirements of operation. The local health economy, like most in the country are funded through very limited resources set by the Department of Health and redirecting part of the local resource to the refurbishment of the branch would unfortunately take away the precious resource from direct patient care.
Choosing to open Lower Stoke would in effect impact on direct patient care and likely result in stretching clinicians (already working at capacity) even further resulting in potentially dilution in quality and safety of care and risk the retention of very hard to come by clinicians. It is unfortunately already very difficult to recruit new clinicians and therefore that would also impact on the direct patient care that is being delivered currently. This is a catch 22 scenario of which local health services are extremely mindful of, having worked hard over the past few years in turning around the practice from its urgent closure in July 2020.
We are very sorry for the inconvenience you feel this has caused you, unfortunately our hands are tied with the limitations. We would like to thank you for your kind feedback. We hope we have been able to address the reasons on why the application has been necessary for the ‘official’ closure of the Lower Stoke Branch.
Nov 2023: We have informed all our patients registered at Lower Stoke branch of this application via SMS messaging. We will be discussing this as an Agenda item in our next PPG Meeting in Jan 2024. However, the PPG Members have also received the SMS with the information. We have also corresponded with all listed stakeholders below.
We will start populating this page with FAQs as we start receiving the feedback from patients and stakeholders.
Nov 2023: We have submitted our application for the official closure of Lower Stoke branch to our local Integrated Care Board (ICB)
If you have any queries or concerns, please email us on aspire.areaenquires@nhs.net. We aim to respond to all emails within 72 hours.
Nov 2023: During this process, we are starting to engage with following stakeholders:
- Local Patients who were using this branch prior to Jan 2020
- All registered patients at Lower Stoke branch
- Our Practice Patient Participation Group (PPG)
- Local Medical Council (LMC)
- Local Health and Social Care
- Neighbouring practices of the Lower Stoke (closed branch)
- Neighbouring Primary Care Network of the Lower Stoke (closed branch)
- Local MPs
- Local Parish Councillors of the Lower Stoke (closed branch).
- Local Parish Councillors for the main site and the Balmoral Gardens Branch
- Local Councillors of the Lower Stoke (closed branch).
- Local Councillors for the main site and the Balmoral Gardens Branch
- Councillors by Ward (Medway)
- Local Healthwatch
- Southeast Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb)
- Medway Foundation Trust (MFT)
- Kent and Medway NHS Social Care Partnership Trust
- Medway Health and Wellbeing Board (Chair and Vice Chair)
- Medway Community Health
- Medway Council (Press Office)
- Kent Community Health Foundation Trust (KCHFT)
- Medway Hospital
Once we have engaged with the above stakeholders, we will provide more information on the engagements. We aim to document and publish any queries or feedback for this application through Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
If you have any queries or concerns, please email us on aspire.areaenquires@nhs.net. We aim to respond to all emails within 72 hours.
Oct 2023: The Lower Stoke Branch of St Werburgh Medical Practice has been closed since 2020, prior to transfer of the practice from the previous Senior GP to the Aspire Medical Health GP Partners.
This branch served less than 500 local patients prior to its closure. And it was only open for 6 hrs per week (for 2 mornings / week).
The nearest pharmacy is 5 miles away and is closer to our main site in Hoo (98 Bells Lane, Hoo, Rochester, Kent, ME3 9HU). The local patients who were using the Local Stoke site would need to travel to the pharmacy to collect their medication (closer to the main site in Hoo), even when Lower Stoke branch was operational.
Since the branch has been non-operational for almost 4 years, local patients who were using the site who wished to be seen closer to home had registered with a more local practice. Many patients opted to remain our patients by utilising services from our main branch.
Since the local patients have been travelling to our main branch and the respective pharmacy (since the branch close), the transport links are good and easy to use.
The premises of this branch has not been refurbished or improved in the last 4 years due to its closure. And therefore, we do not feel it is safe and compliant with the stringent CQC premises regulations. Since COVID, like most practices we have adapted to the use of advanced technology like online consultation platforms in addition Telephone and Face 2 Face to provide better access to all our patients. Re-opening of this site would incur unnecessarily higher premises and operational costs (less GP and AHP time due to travel, more admin time etc) the practice will not be able to afford, since we operate on very tight NHS Budget which we would benefit utilising as much as we can for direct patient care.
We have started the process of applying for the ‘official closure of the ‘Lower Stoke Branch’ since this has been closed for last 4 years and currently incurring premises and utility costs to the NHS which would otherwise be better spent on direct patient care and wellbeing. Since this application is well past the time of the Lower Stoke branch closure in 2020, we do not anticipate or expect any potential issues for any of our registered patients or the stakeholders.
If you have any queries or concerns, please email us on aspire.areaenquires@nhs.net. We aim to respond to all emails within 72 hours.
16th Oct 2023 – 23rd Aug 2024: Lower Stoke Branch Closure Application & Engagement Timeline