The Oxford City NHS Primary Care Trust
(PCT) is looking to create a unified health centre in Oxford
by 2012 to replace GP practices around Oxford.The PCT is a health trust that
works on cases outside hospitals. It is currently in talks with the local
community to decide upon the best site for a local health centre. The OUSU Vice
President (Welfare and Equal Opportunities), Aidan Randle-Conde, has been
requested to find out where students wish to have the central health centre
located. Aidan has sent an email to all JCR
Presidents and college Welfare Officers asking them to discuss the PCT plans at
their next JCR meetings. He wrote, “The plans are to move local GP practices
from across Oxford (Jericho, Beaumont Street etc) to a central site on
the Radcliffe Infirmary site.” There are currently four plans
under consideration: to move all facilities to a) the Radcliffe Infirmary (RI)
site; b) to the RI site and the Wellington Square site; c) to the site and the Tidmarsh
Lane site; or d) to renovate existing facilities. The PCT hopes to use feedback
from the local community, including students, whom they feel should be integral
to their decision making process, to decide between one of these four options. Melanie Proudfoot, Communications
Manager for the PCT, said, “Many current GP practices are in old buildings
which need to be replaced.” The PCT is “planning to put them onto the Radcliffe
Infirmary site or onto another site so that we can develop their facilities and
allow other facilities to expand.” This will also prevent students
and patients from having to “travel around different locations,” and will
provide “many different health services in one complex.” She added that
therapies, such as psychotherapy, currently provided in Churchill or Headington,
and X-rays provided by the John Radcliffe, would be on one site and so save
people an extra journey. The closer health care facilities
will be welcomed by many Oxford
students who currently have to travel long distances to get to their GP. Laura Callaghan-Pace,
a second year at St Hilda’s, said that the Oxford health care system was “horrendous”
after she spent much of last term trying to cope with illness. “I had to trek
all the way to the Radcliffe Infirmary and then up Banbury Road to see my GP, and then to Headington.”
Laura thinks it would be “beneficial and very useful to have everything on the
same site”. However, Adam Kelly, Welfare Representative
of St Anne’s College said, “believe students are quite happy with the current
system as our local health centre is a one minute walk away from the College.”The JCR President of St Peter’s College
Omar Shekwini, said he was pleased that the health care trust was consulting
students “if this is a genuine means of determining what students think.” Oxford students will have
to wait to see whether their opinions do affect the PCT’s decision.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005
Students consulted over health scheme
