Closure of North Harbour Medical Group – update

You may be aware that North Harbour Medical Group will be closing in spring 2023 and patients will be registered to alternative practices in the area.

We are working closely with NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (HIOW ICB) and with colleagues at Portsdown Group Practice to ensure the transition of patients goes as smoothly as possible and with little to no disruption to our normal, everyday service currently provided to our registered patients.

In readiness for the arrival of new patients at The Drayton Surgery in the spring, we:

• Have recruited a range of extra staff to manage the increased demand and provide additional availability to our GPs, nurses and other clinical specialists including pharmacists, physiotherapists, care coordinators, social prescribers and practitioners. We know that our primary care colleagues at Portsdown are similarly prepared.
• Have updated our telephone system which will make it easier for patients to get through to us with their queries and requests for appointments.
• Will be recruiting additional administration staff, including care navigators, to answer more calls coming into the practice.
• Are refurbishing and creating more clinical space at our Wootton Street site to continue to deliver the highest quality care and services to our existing patients, and to ensure that any new patients who join us from North Harbour are similarly treated.

If you are a patient at North Harbour Medical Group, please note that we are unable to accept your registration just yet. HIOW ICB has asked North Harbour Medical Group patients to not re-register at another surgery at this stage. This is because the patient transfer must be managed, to ensure practices know how many additional patients they will have and can plan what extra staff and resources they may need to support patients.

Jo York, Managing Director at HIOW ICB in Portsmouth, said: “We anticipate that The Drayton Surgery and The Portsdown Group Practice will between them take on the majority of patients currently registered at North Harbour, due to the practice boundaries and the postcode mapping. Both of these practices have given us considerable support in managing the transfer. They are both large, stable and resilient practices and we are confident in their recruitment plans and capacity to manage the majority of the North Harbour patients between them.  We have been grateful for their proactive, partnership approach, which has been hugely important in helping us manage this situation for the North Harbour patients. In addition to this, some patients will be eligible to choose other practices, dependent on their registered address. This also includes options for those who live closer to practices in Portchester or the south of the city.”

Information about the patient transfer from North Harbour Medical Group can be seen on the North Harbour Medical Group website – www.northharbourmedicalgroup.nhs.uk/closure.