TIMELINE (& LATEST NEWS)

• 2010 - Cheshire East Council (CEC) announce the 'temporary' closure of the Bexton Court care facility adjacent to the Community Hospital

• 2012 - Darrow consultants declare the existing Community Hospital site to be the 'only credible' location for a new 'Super Surgery'

• 2015 - CEC confirms that the only option for Bexton Court is to transfer the property to the NHS for use as a new medical centre

• 2022 - A Freedom of Information (FoI) request reveals that CEC is spending in excess of £22,500 per annum to mothball Bexton Court

• 2022 - The newly created Cheshire & Merseyside Integrated Care Board (ICB) receives another consultants report (this from Square Zero Consultants) favouring the creation of a new Health & Wellbeing Centre on the site of the existing Community Hospital in Knutsford

• 2022 - The Knutsford Medical Partnership (KMP) declare that they are desperate for a new medical centre and may have to consider closing their patients list to new residents because of a lack of capacity. HAWK members meet with KMP to see how they can support their campaign

• 2023 - The ICB announces that plans for the new Health & Wellbeing Centre have been downgraded!

• 31/5/23 - KTC call a town meeting to discuss the topic. No CEC representatives present. The ICB representative promises to do everything in his power to make the development happen. The town Mayor undertakes to convene a Project Board
• 10/7/23 - First Project Board meeting held. The ICB undertake to review and assess all previous reports and analysis with a view to preparing an outline business case (OCB) within 4 weeks for all parties to submit to their own decision makers for consideration. Possible costs are in the region of £18M - £20M
• 22/8/23 - Second Project Board meeting and the ICB have not produced the promised OCB. The meeting questions their commitment although this was refuted. The ICB stated this could be completed by the end of October.
• 25/9/23 - CEC votes to close the Stanley Centre and provides services elsewhere
• 30/10/23 - Planned date for 3rd project Board meeting
• Nov 23 - Developers Citybranch offer a £15m deal to build a new centre at no capital cost to the NHS. This is due for discussion by the ICB at their January meeting. See https://www.knutsfordguardian.co.uk/news/23931950.private-developer-vows-invest-15m-new-knutsford-medical-centre/ for more details
• Feb 24 - Update from KMP: Unfortunately, we did not have the stakeholder meeting in January as work around the business case is still ongoing. The surgeries are just about to begin a procurement process to ensure value for NHS money is adhered to with developers; this is at the request of the ICB to ensure any business case put forwarded passes scrutiny and isn’t delayed further down the line. We anticipate shortlisted providers will come forward in the next 6-8 weeks; these will then be interviewed by a panel consisting of the surgery, ICB and ECT with proposals to then follow. In the meantime all of the major stakeholders are meeting to review the schedule of accommodation and look at further integration between primary and secondary care colleagues (not only to save space requirements in a new build but to streamline the services and enable us to offer above and beyond those we are all currently providing). Citybranch are actively involved and will participate in the process; they continue to work with us to progress our business case and project and are extremely supportive in pushing forward the new health centre. We appreciate there has not been a further public meeting as promised last May; this is something we have asked the Town Council to arrange and are looking at meeting with Esther McVey over the next couple of weeks to try and arrange a date for this.
• Aug 24 - Update from KMP: The surgery have formally appointed City Branch as our preferred developer for the project, after undergoing a procurement exercise requested by the ICB. Working alongside City Branch are Community Ventures in producing the business base (including case for change, options appraisal and financials). We plan to submit the Outline Business Case (OBS) to the Integrated Care Board (ICB) by mid-September for an agreement in principle as soon as possible.
• Nov 24 - Update from KMP: They have submitted a presentation of the Outline Business Case to the ICS (Integrated Care System) with the full support of the East Cheshire Trust and are waiting for a meeting with them to present/discuss. HAWK has supplied a letter of support as has the PPG (Patient Participation Group).