The Great Yarmouth Mercury reported that: Greyfrairs Medical Clinic in Howard Street will close by September after the governing body of NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) approved the proposals at a meeting in Beccles this afternoon. Officials from NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) met to examine a report outlining how patients used the clinic and to consider its future. CCG bosses said the walk-in centre was not used enough and had “minimal impact towards reducing A&E attendances” at the James Paget. Their own figures show that between April 2014 and March 2015 the average attendance per day was 28, with around half of those being people from outside the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area, however the report noted that the centre was busier during the holiday season. At weekends 57 patients attend per day, with a third of them coming from outside the area. A Norfolk County Council report found in May 2014 that 42pc of patients spoken to at Greyfriars said that they would have attended A&E if the walk-in centre had not been available. The CCG plans to mitigate the walk-in centre closure by “enhancing” the NHS 111 helpline and expanding the GP-led out-of-hours primary care service at the Paget. The contract to provide GP and walk in centre services at Greyfrairs in Howard Street South came to an end on March 31 – it was then extended for another six months and is currently provided by Malling Health. Yvonne Ellis, the practice manager at Greyfriars, said: “I understand the contract has come to an end, however I do not think the dispersal of our patients is necessary. I don’t think they will save money by doing so. “Neighbouring practices are already overworked. We regularly see patients from other surgeries who come here because they can’t get an appointment. “We do care about patients, it is not about money. We are there to provide a service and unfortunately we will not be able to do that from September. It is quite sad.” I personally do not think this is right; this surgery provides an essential service both to its residents and visitors to our town. The surgery provides medical care 365 days a week between the hours of 8am and 8pm. As a walk in, it will see anybody who cannot get an appointment at their own surgery for any reason and see holiday makers who need to see a GP or Nurse whilst on holiday. As a patient me and my family benefit from the fact the surgery is open 7 days a week as we do not have to take time off work to see our doctor for our routine appointment as well as taking advantage of the walk in if we need to see a doctor urgently. More than 5,000 patients in Great Yarmouth will lose their GP, in many cases these people have built a relationship with their doctor. These patients will be assigned a new surgery with a new GP who does not know them who will have to get to know their new patient and their needs.   Regarding the walk in side of the surgery Great Yarmouth and Waveney NHS trust plans to enhance its 111 service expanding the GP-led out-of-hours primary care service at the Paget. This is purely a money saving exercise and does not have the patients best interest at heart. When calling 111 you do not talk to a trained medical member of staff, you talk to a call handler who follows a set of questions given to them. The staff then place your answers in to the system and the call handler is told how best to advise you. You may be directed to a nurse or a doctor who can advise from a medical point of view however; the majority of the time you are being advised by a member of staff who is not medically trained and is reading of a computer screen. Extending the GP service at the Paget will mean there are more GPs out of hours, however it will not help patients who cannot get an appointment on that day with there own GP and will mean that tourists will struggle to see a GP or will have to travel a fair distance to see a GP. I have set up this petition as I believe Greyfriars provides a vital service to the people of and the tourists to Great Yarmouth. Please sign this Petition to save Greyfriars health centre.   Join our FB page. https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurWalkIn