A Newport doctors’ surgery is struggling to operate out of its current practices and is a ‘huge risk of causing health inequalities’, a councillor fears. Raising the issue at an Isle of Wight Council meeting on Wednesday, Councillor Martin Oliver, the representative for Mountjoy and Shide, highlighted how Newport Health Centre was bursting at its seams. The practice, which formed following the merger of Dower House Surgery and Carisbrooke Health Centre in 2019, has more than 24,000 patients on its books. It operates from 2 sites, on Carisbrooke High Street and the centre of Newport. Cllr Oliver said:
“The lack of appropriate site has had a huge risk of causing health inequalities as the practice struggles to fit the services they need.”
He said the practice has been trying to work with the council for more than 3 years to find an alternative location and called for the council leader, Councillor Phil Jordan, to help it obtain the only site that is viable for a new facility, on Godric Road. Plans to move the health centre to the site near Asda were 1st heard in public 2 years ago as the Carisbrooke facility was deemed ‘unfit for purpose’ and the former practice partners at Dower House wanted to sell the Pyle Street property. 
Contractors Assura had been engaged to find and develop a state-of-the-art building with a large car park and favoured the Isle of Wight Council-owned space on Godric Road. In 2021, fears had been raised that the out-of-town site would be challenging to access for some residents who do not drive or would have to get 2 buses to get treatment. Cllr Jordan said he had already met the practice but pledged to do so again and said he was committed to trying to find a solution for the problem as it was important to local communities. Councillorr Geoff Brodie, the Pan and Barton representative, said Newport councillors had been seriously concerned about the practice as a premises as it was affecting the healthcare people were receiving.
And how many new houses are planned for Newport??
Yeah looks it when I go in there normally only 2 people sat waiting more like the problem is doctors still hiding away since Covid
I never have a problem with appointments and likr you said there is only ever a handful of people in the waiting rooms.
Thus place has shocking staff and services anyway.i moved recently thankfully as the treatment i WASNT getting and useless doctors was dire! Good riddance i say
But Carisbrooke is still being used so its not that unfit for practice, the two practices should never have been combined. What is needed, far more than new premises, is more Doctors in fact additional practices. Ryde has three. The population has long ago far outstripped the available healthcare. No account of it seems to be taken into planning decisions.
STOP development until healthcare is adequate.
Cant get to see a Doctor in a reasonable time frame.
Cant get an answer on the phone.
Health Care assistants doing Nurses jobs.
Nurses doing Doctors Jobs.
Reception staff curt.
No parking.
Carisbrooke the same only with difficult small parking place if your lucky.
Both dreadful practice.
Its NOT bursting at the seams; there is never more that 3 people sat in there, same at Carisbrooke everyone know that if they are patients at that practice.
You cannot get an appointment, they don’t answer the phones and cut you off after waiting for 40 minutes.
That is just not true that they are bursting at the seams, what a joke.
Ever more ethnics arriving here, looking for rental accommodation, so expect a swell in population and closed schools we need to re-think within a short while.
Best keep Parkhurst in moth-balls too.
Totally agree with the previous comments.These two combined surgeries need looking into in all aspects by the health ombudsman or the care quality commission. It’s the worse surgery on the island for a reason. That said the NHS as a whole seems to be on its knees at the moment, not helped by the doctors strikes. Whether you pay them more money or not it’s not going to change anything. The NHS needs less pen pushing beurocratic chiefs and more indians and a government that wants an NHS instead of forcing people to go private.
That’s because it’s full of the ever growing scumbag population who’ll grow up drug driving and dealing and robbing etc
More like bursting at the seams with idle, benefit scrounging, work shy losers who want to be on the sick rather than contributing to society. The amount of time these scum take up requesting sick notes, not taking productive steps to care for themselves whilst using alcohol and substances and then demand the government feed, water and clothe them. Despicable.
Why should the surgery go to pan ? What about people from Carisbrooke who have used the surgery for years and don’t have their own transport ? and can you rely on buses or council promises ? seems to be pandering to the new estate movers than to the original island population. Why allow so many people on the drs books ? How on earth can that amount of people be adequately cared for ?