Health clinic set to close for refurbishment

A HEALTH centre in Welwyn Garden City will close for a £250,000 refurbishment later this year.

Parkway Health Clinic, in Birdcroft Road, will close its doors for several months while the revamp takes place.

There is no set date for the closure, but it is expected to shut after the modernisation of Queensway clinic in Hatfield has finished.

The centre, which is also a family planning clinic, will then become the new specialist wheelchair centre in the county, catering for 11,500 people.

Many of the admininstration staff are expected to permanently move to the new Queensway clinic to make way for the new services.

As part of the overall upgrade the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust expects to relocate some clinics from WGC to Hatfield, to meet patient needs.

The revamp is expected to take place over 12 weeks and is planned to be completed by September.

Trust director of operations Julie Hoare said: “We will spend £1.25m upgrading and modernising healthcare facilities in the Welwyn Hatfield area in 2013.

“Our patients will start to see the benefits from mid-summer, when Hatfield’s Queensway Clinic reopens and in the autumn, when Parkway reopens.

“Wheelchair-user patients across Hertfordshire are currently badly served by our crumbling facility at Kingsley Green [in Radlett] and deserve much better.

“The Parkway refit will allow these patients to attend appointments and receive treatment in comfort and with dignity.

“Some patients accessing some healthcare services currently coming out of Parkway will have a little further to travel in future, as these shift to Queensway.

“We will work to minimise any disruption and impact for them.

“We will shortly be talking to our Parkway patients and our wheelchair user patients to seek their feedback about the changes.

“We want to ensure they result in the best service provision.”