{"id":693863,"date":"2026-07-15T23:53:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T23:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693863\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T23:53:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T23:53:19","slug":"meeting-to-discuss-pressures-on-health-services-in-dereham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693863\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting to discuss pressures on health services in Dereham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The cross-party Dereham Health and Care Summit, called by George Freeman, MP for Mid Norfolk, is scheduled for Friday (July 17).\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  This will bring together councils, GP surgeries, pharmacies, dentists, care homes, health charities, patient bodies, and NHS commissioners to develop a unified plan.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  It follows the closure of Toftwood Medical Practice last year, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.derehamtimes.co.uk\/news\/25352495.toftwood-surgery-replacement-councillors-demand-answers?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">displaced thousands of patients<\/a> to two surgeries and increased pressure on existing services.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\" alt=\"Toftwood Surgery in Dereham closed in March last year.\"\/>Toftwood Medical Practice in Dereham closed in March last year. (Image: Newsquest)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Theatre Royal Surgery introduced extra clinics on Saturdays, more remote appointments during the week, and a new modular building to cope with the demand.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Freeman said the pressure was &#8220;set to worsen fast&#8221; &#8211; highlighting the government\u2019s new &#8220;50pc increase in new housebuilding targets&#8221;.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  He added that the summit hopes to agree a single plan for Dereham and a bid to the NHS and Department of Health and Social Care.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Mr Freeman continued: &#8220;This is the next step towards the town putting forward a shared, cross-party plan for Dereham&#8217;s health and care provision and the investment in a new Toftwood Medical Centre the town urgently needs&#8221;.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>George Freeman, MP for Mid Norfolk, has convened a cross-party health and care summit for Dereham (Image: George Freeman)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The MP <a href=\"https:\/\/www.derehamtimes.co.uk\/news\/26115084.dereham-health-centre-campaign-sees-plans-town-summit\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">previously wrote a letter<\/a> to Stephen Kinnock, minister of care, and Dr Ed Garratt at the Norfolk and Suffolk ICB, asking them to support a bid for a new Neighbourhood Health Centre to be built in south Dereham.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The government has pledged to open 250 centres by 2035, with the first 120 open by 2030.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Once completed, patients can access a wider range of health services from these centres &#8211; all under one roof and closer to their homes &#8211; including urgent treatment, GP and pharmacy services.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  It was also highlighted that NHCs will eventually include debt advice, employment and family support and be open 12 hours a day, six days a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cross-party Dereham Health and Care Summit, called by George Freeman, MP for Mid Norfolk, is scheduled for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-693863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}