WARRINGTON’S out-of-hours GP services will be moved to the town centre early next month after plans to relocate them from Warrington Hospital were passed.

The service will be moved to an out-of-hours hub at Bath Street Health and Wellbeing Centre after approval for the scheme was given by NHS Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group’s governing body.

Relocation from its present location in Warrington Hospital’s fractures clinic is earmarked to take place on Wednesday October 5.

GP appointments from 6.30pm-8am on weekdays and around the clock on weekends and bank holidays will be offered from the ground floor of the new premises, which will be branded the Warrington Primary Care Out-of-Hours Hub and will have six clinical rooms plus a treatment room.

Dr Andy Davies, chief clinical officer at NHS Warrington CCG, said: “Our aim is to do all we can to make sure that local services meet the needs of local people.

“Feedback from the public shows that the people of Warrington clearly felt that Bath Street Health and Wellbeing Centre is a better home for the service and that the location will make the service more accessible for people with better transport links and free parking.

“The facility at Bath Street provides us with an excellent opportunity to develop an integrated out-of-hours service, making it much easier for people to access a range of services out-of-hours.”

Out-of-hours services were formerly housed at the Garven Place surgery on Sankey Street before it was demolished in 2011 to allow for the Bath Street development.

An ‘extensive’ public consultation earlier this year saw a total of 96 per cent of 236 respondents vote in favour of the move, while Warrington Borough Council’s scrutiny committee was also in support of the relocation despite raising concerns.

The scrutiny committee sought assurance from the CCG that the same level of resources that are currently available for out-of-hours services would be automatically transferred to the new location.

Governing body meeting papers also highlighted that the free car park next to the Bath Street Health and Wellbeing Centre would be ‘adequate’ as most other services would not be operating out of the premises at the same time.

An evaluation of the relocation’s success will take place six months after the changes are implemented in the coming weeks.