Worthing Herald column – February 1st 2024
I spent most of last Friday immersed in the NHS. After meeting staff at the Pond Road surgery in Shoreham to talk about some of the challenges facing them, not helped by some recent anti-social behaviour against the staff, I joined the celebrations at Southlands for the official opening of the Community Diagnostic Centre.
The CDC is one of 160 being launched across England by the end of March, incredibly a year ahead of schedule. The Southlands site was actually opened quietly last October offering MRI and CT scanners for local people as well as walk-in Xray facilities. It is a state-of-the-art facility where every consideration has been given to patient comfort and convenience, open typically 8am-8pm and at weekends thanks to the expert 50 strong team.
Patients are in and out speedily and efficiently and scan results instantly downloaded to digital records. As a result more than 14,000 people have been through the facility since October and phase 2 of the projects is due to open later in the year offering further heart scanning and maternity capacity. This is a fantastic example of technology transforming the NHS and improving patient care and it is brilliant we have it on the Southlands site which has been transformed in recent years.
There was also more good news for Shoreham with the confirmation that a new banking hub is to open in the High Street in March. This follows my referral to Cash Access UK for a review into the lack of bank branches across Shoreham, Southwick and Lancing after the closures that have left Adur without any banks with the last standing branch, Nat West in Shoreham, about to close.
This is good news as the new Hub will be open for customers of the five main banks on different days during the week, Nat West, Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays and Santander. Whilst Shoreham was identified as the top priority they will keep under review the need in Lancing whilst the Barclays desk at Southwick Community Centre remains busy.
