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Patients and Lib Dem protesters at the Finsbury Health Centre last week |
Axe falls on ‘polyclinic’ just as its time has come
1930s health centre that led the way now too costly to run
HEALTH chiefs are to break with government policy by shutting one of London’s first polyclinics.
Finsbury Health Centre opened in Pine Street in 1938, a forerunner of the super-surgeries now set to replace GP practices across the country.
Like the polyclinic model proposed under government reforms, the historic health centre provides an integrated service, with GPs working alongside a range of hospital outpatient services, including podiatry, dentistry and a baby clinic.
Islington Primary Care Trust says it cannot afford to maintain the Grade I-listed building and plans to break it up, with some services moving as far as three miles away, in Hornsey Rise, Upper Holloway.
Patient Adrian Hall, who lives in nearby Peregrine House, said: “This will be a massive disruption. Peregrine has around 1,000 people, many elderly, who depend on the services at Finsbury Health Centre.”
Tony Hoolaghan, the PCT’s locality director, said: “We will be moving some services away from Finsbury but these are not what we believe are local services. The local services will stay in Finsbury.
“The doctors’ surgeries will be moving within touching distance of Finsbury Health Centre in a new building in Pine Street.
“All the changes will go out for consultation and we will really be interested to hear what they have to say.”
Finsbury Health Centre opened 70 years ago as part of the ambitious “Finsbury Plan”. The council of the day set about tackling chronic deprivation by building a health centre, public baths, libraries and nurseries.
Designed by the émigré Russian architect Berthold Lubetkin, the building is considered an important example of British Modernism.
In 1943, the building featured in an anti-war poster by graphic designer Abram Games which superimposed Finsbury Health Centre onto a picture of starving children standing in a slum, with the words: “Your Britain – Fight for it Now.” The poster was later banned by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Sharon Hayward, Independent Working Class Association representative for Clerkenwell, said: “While the opening of the building was symbolic of the political radicalism of the authorities in Finsbury at that time, preceding the commencement of the National Health Service by 10 years, the planned sell-off is equally symbolic of the authorities’ determination to now privatise or sell everything and anything that services the needs of Finsbury’s working-class community.”
The PCT said it would apply to the council for change of use, to make the historic building more attractive to developers.
Mr Hoolaghan said: “We are not really here to look after historic buildings – we are here to provide health care. We think given the historical significance of the building there will be a number of interested parties.”
The PCT said services moved out of Finsbury Health Centre would not be put out for tender.
Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Bridget Fox, who organised a demonstration outside the centre last week, said: “What we care about most is that the services stay in Finsbury. But the government won’t give the PCT the money needed to keep the listed building up to scratch.” |
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