With ongoing consultations currently taking place on health service provisions for the area, a Tenby councillor has suggested that it is the ideal time to look to create a ‘health campus’ for the town, combining the GP Practice and Cottage Hospital .

Hywel Dda University Health Board recently informed patients that the contractor at Tenby Surgery had made the decision to cease providing service from August 1, and that the Health Board would be taking over managing the services and building a ‘new model’ for the area which would be fit for the community in the longer term.

Discussing the matter at Tuesday night’s meeting of Tenby town council, Clr. Laurence Blackhall said that now would be an ideal time for the Health Board to enter discussions to integrate the doctor’s surgery and hospital facilities and bring the services together for the good of the area.

Clr. Blackhall suggested that such a move would also help protect the ‘walk-in’ nurse-led service all year round and allow patients to be seen by the right professional.

“It would be a closer integration of services for Tenby and a hugely radical plan to create a health campus for the town, but this is a huge opportunity to get people involved and together now around a table to start discussions.

“The health board have set out in their ambitions for health care services in the area the need for services to be joined up as a priority, so this is a chance to say can we do something really innovative here in Tenby and hopefully create flagship way of working,” he continued.

The Mayor of Tenby. Clr. Mrs. Sue Lane criticised the wording of the letter recently sent out by the Health Board to patients of the Tenby Surgery as it gave the impression in the first paragraph of the letter that the facility was closing, stating that the end of the letter where it stated ‘The practice remains open as normal’ would have been a better opening line to save a lot of ‘anxiety’ for those that were registered there.