01 Nov 2023
Harpenden faces a looming crisis of an increasingly ageing and growing population, but a lack of sufficient healthcare to meet all of their needs.
That was the grim reality revealed at a special public meeting featuring Dr Bethan Rees, clinical director of the town’s Primary Care Network (PCN), and hosted by the Harpenden Society.
Developments mooted within the district’s draft Local Plan could see thousands of new residents moving into Harpenden – but no extra healthcare provision to cope.
Speaking to an audience at Katherine Warington School, Dr Rees explained how vital changes were being made to maximise local healthcare resources, including creating closer links between Harpenden’s three GP surgeries – Davenport House, the Elms and the Village Surgery – to provide a potential 44,000 patients with the best care possible.
But this needed to take into account a finite NHS budget and manpower limitations.
She said ongoing PCN priorities included enhanced patient access to medical services, medication reviews, early cancer diagnosis, cardiovascular disease prevention and diagnosis, tackling neighbourhood health inequalities and what she called “anticipatory care”.
More doctors, nurses and ancillary medical personnel were urgently needed to maintain and improve services, despite technological developments, with 30 staff recruited in the past year to manage the new admin systems, although this has created its own challenges with insufficient working space at the town’s surgeries.
