The members of the NHS Lincolnshire West CCG governing body who decided on the closure.
Controversial plans to close the Lincoln Walk-In Centre have been officially rubber-stamped, with residents slamming the decision makers who have pushed through the deeply unpopular move.
The final nail in the coffin for the centre which has been open in Lincoln for eight years was confirmed at an NHS Lincolnshire West Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) governing body meeting at the Ruston Sports and Social Club on Wednesday, September 27.
The CCG is responsible for planning, buying and monitoring GP, hospital, mental health and community health services on behalf of the 240,000 people living in Lincoln, Gainsborough and surrounding areas.
CCGs were brought in by former Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley under The Health and Social Care Act 2012 during the coalition government, replacing primary care trusts.
Here are the 13 members of the Lincolnshire West CCG governing body who have been looking after your health in making this decision:
Richard Childs – Lay Chair
Richard Childs (centre). Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Described as “a firm believer in the NHS”, Richard Childs was Chief Constable of Lincolnshire Police for six years between 1997 and 2003.
After leaving this position, he was a consultant in the security industry and reportedly earned £42,500 a year as managing director of The Association of Chief Police Officers’ (ACPO) Crime Prevention Initiatives.
On the Lincolnshire West CCG website, he is quoted as being “committed” to seeing the NHS grow and develop in Lincolnshire to provide a quality of service to everyone which surpasses that which is already given in the county.
Dr Sunil Hindocha – Clinical Chief Officer
Dr Sunil Hindocha. Photo: Stee Smailes for The Lincolnite
In an interview with The Lincolnite just days after the consultation was launched, he said that there was no evidence that closing the walk-in centre would lead to an increased demand at A&E.
He also said that the busiest GP practices understood that there could be “two or three” additional appointments that they would have to cover daily as a result of the changes.
The GP at the City Medical Practice in Lincoln added: “Very few people [who use the walk-in-centre] actually need treatment, never mind A&E, they can probably do with a self-care or limited, minor illness advice from pharmacies.”
Dr Hindocha moved to Lincoln in 1991 and is married to a GP who works at a practice in the city.
Sarah-Jane Mills – Chief Operating Officer
Sarah-Jane Mills. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
She said: “It’s about having those conversations with the public about them taking responsibility for their health and accessing health services in a different way.
“It means that you need to think about living a healthy lifestyle – it’s everything that you hear.
“If you’re overweight, lose weight.”
Rob Croot – Chief Financial Officer
Rob Croot: Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
A former PFI procurement director, Rob Croot has been the Chief Financial Officer at Lincolnshire West CCG since it was created.
He was an accountant prior to joining the NHS in 1993 and has worked across the East Midlands in senior financial leadership roles, including in acute trusts in Nottingham and Leicester.
Wendy Martin – Executive Lead Nurse and Midwife – Quality & Governance
Wendy Martin. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Wendy Martin is described as the executive lead in papers published last week which recommended the closure of the centre.
She has worked in the NHS since 1985 and for the last 12 years is said to have been focused on improving clinical services and care quality.
Dr Martin Latham – Executive GP – Quality & Governance
Dr Martin Latham. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Dr Martin Latham worked for over 30 years as a partner at Birchwood Medical Practice before retiring in 2012, and currently does some locum GP work in various surgeries in the area.
Dr John Parkin – Executive GP
Dr John Parkin. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Dr John Parkin combines his duties as Principal GP at Branston and Heighington Family Practice, with his role at Lincolnshire West CCG, which he has been a member of for over six years.
Dr Will Vessey – Executive GP
Dr Will Vessey. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
After qualifying from Edinburgh University and working in Yorkshire, Dr Will Vessey moved back to Lincolnshire in 2004 to become a GP partner in Gainsborough and is now based at the Hibaldstow Practice.
He is said to have a particular interest in the John Coupland Hospital in the town.
Dr Nazar Imam – Executive GP
Dr Nazar Imam. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Dr Nazar Imam joined Lincolnshire West CCG in April 2014. He has over 25 years of experience, including time spent as a lecturer at a medical school outside of the county, as despite repeated pleas, Lincolnshire remains one of the biggest counties without such a facility.
He started work in Gainsborough as a GP since 2009 and has also been involved in doing sessions in substance misuse clinics in Gainsborough and Lincoln Prison.
In addition to this, Dr Imam works as a GP Appraiser and Out of Hours GP Trainee Supervisor.
Dr Samrat Roychowdhury – Secondary Care Consultant
Dr Samrat Roychowdhury. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
A consultant physician at Kettering General Hospital, nearly 70 miles away from the Lincoln Walk-In Centre, Dr Samrat Roychowdhury joined Lincolnshire West CCG in November 2014.
His special interests listed on the website include Parkinson’s disease, osteoporosis and heart failure.
Roger Buttery – Lay Member – Governance
Roger Buttery. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
As a former treasurer and clerk to the Lincolnshire Police Authority and deputy county of treasurer of Lincolnshire, Roger Buttery has been involved in the public and private sectors in the county for almost 50 years.
The qualified accountant was chair of the audit committee at the former NHS Lincolnshire for six-and-a-half years, and was a member of the governing body at the University of Lincoln.
Susan Edge – Lay Member – Patient & Public Involvement
A governor at two local primary schools, Susan Edge is lay member with responsibility for patient and public involvement at Lincolnshire West CCG.
She is a trustee of the soundLINCS not-for-profit community music organisation.
She was not present at the meeting.
Graham Smith – Lay Member – Primary Care Commissioning
Graham Smith. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Graham Smith formally joined Lincolnshire West CCG on April 1, 2015 after amassing 30 years of experience in the NHS.
Now retired, he specialised in taking on troubleshooting roles in failing organisations, and held chief executive posts in mental health/learning disability and acute NHS trusts.
He later became an independent management consultant, where he used his expertise in organisational and financial turnaround and performance management.
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Fantasy Island Skegness has crawled into the ongoing caterpillar cat fight between Marks & Spencer and Aldi by ‘cocooning’ the Crazy Caterpillar ride in solidarity with Aldi.
Supermarket chains M&S and Aldi are currently involved in a legal battle after M&S claimed that Aldi’s ‘Cuthbert the Caterpillar’ cake infringes the trademarks of its own ‘Colin the Caterpillar’.
M&S filed a claim against Aldi in the High Court on April 14, and is suing the budget supermarket as well as demanding that Cuthbert is removed from Aldi shelves.
The company claim Cuthbert shares “substantial similarity” with Colin, and they are pledging to “protect” their Caterpillar cake from plagiarism.
Aldi, which introduced their caterpillar confectionary almost thirty years after M&S did theirs, has been posting a series of memes in response to the lawsuit, demanding that we #FreeCuthbert.
Fantasy Island, the theme park in Ingoldmells, joined in the debate with a tongue-in-cheek move, saying they will close the Crazy Caterpillar ride in solidarity with Aldi and to not offend Marks & Spencer.
The resort created a cheeky post on Facebook with #FreeCuthbert on it, truly showing which side of history it wants to be on.
It’s proved a valuable publicity move for the attraction’s social media page, with more than 4,000 ‘reactions’ to the post.
Around 15% of Lincolnshire’s adult population is now fully vaccinated against coronavirus, health bosses have said.
Lincolnshire County Council’s assistant director for public health Andy Fox said the latest figures showed just under 100,000 people had received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine – 97,984.
Government figures on Thursday showed that officially more than 500,000 doses of vaccine had been handed out in total with 82,659 of those being second jabs – a rise of more than 15,000
Meanwhile 66.6% of the population have had their first dose – more than 425,000.
“We’re really pleased with where we are with the vaccine in Lincolnshire,” said Andy.
“We know that the NHS teams doing the vaccination has been focusing on the second dose recently so we’ve seen that go up from a few percent a few weeks ago to now we’re 15% of the adult population in Lincolnshire are fully vaccinated, which is again, really good to see.”
Of those that have received their second dose, the highest numbers are in the 80-plus age group with 36,500 people, while 17,000 75-79-year-olds are fully vaccinated.
More than 93,000 people took a lateral flow test last week. The number was expected to go down due to schools – which normally do between 40-60,000 tests alone – being shut, however, it is thought to have been balanced out by people ordering new home testing kits.
There is currently no evidence of the Indian variant in Lincolnshire, confirmed Andy Fox, while the Kent variant is now the dominant strain at 90%.
Lincolnshire’s infection rate continues to decrease, reaching 26.5 per 100,000, and now sitting below the England average of 26.8.
Health bosses are not overly concerned by small rises at district level in Lincoln, or by Boston remaining high on the league table of infection rates.
Mr Fox said the general trend continued to be moving downward.
Forensic tests by wildlife investigators have revealed the death of a bird of prey in Crowland may be linked to a criminal poisoning.
Lincolnshire Police have launched an investigation after a Red Kite was found dead on a piece of land in the area, with a member of public reporting it to the authorities.
The bird was sent off for forensic tests through the government wildlife incident investigation scheme, which concluded that indications suggest it had been poisoned.
As a result of this, Lincolnshire Police’s wildlife crime officers, as well as Natural England, the RSPB and the National Wildlife Crime Unit have carried out searches at addresses in the Crowland area.
During these searches under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, items such as banned pesticides were found, which could be linked to the poisoning offence.
Two people have been identified in relation to this and will be spoken to by officers.
Detective Constable Aaron Flint, Officer in the case has said: “Raptor Persecution is one of the UK’s National wildlife crime priorities and is taken very seriously by Lincolnshire Police.
“These offences will always be dealt with expeditiously and robustly. Deliberate killing of birds of prey is an offence which I urge the public to report if they become aware of it.
“I would like to add, that if a bird of prey is found dead and you believe it is suspicious it should be reported to the police immediately to allow an investigation into its death to commence.
“The bird may have been poisoned which poses obvious health and safety concerns if handled. Providing the police with the What3words location would be extremely useful when reporting an incident”.