Weston Rhyn villagers fighting to keep GP drop-in surgery

More than 50 people attended a public meeting last night in Weston Rhyn to discuss proposals to close the two-days-a-week surgery.

The meeting was led by Dr Robert Smith from Chirk surgery, who runs the service, and practice manager Julie Webster.

"We don't generally see people who actually need to see a doctor at the walk-in, and we can't do everything we need to do because we don't have access to the records," Dr Smith said.

"Over the last 10 weeks there have been between seven and 12 people attending each week.

"I could see more patients than that if I was at the surgery.

"There are just a lot of little things that could be better about the surgery."

But local resident Tom Shepherd said residents felt the surgery was filling a vital need in the village.

He said: "A lot of people feel very strongly about this.

"Our village hasn't got much of a heart and the surgery is part of that.

"If you take away out surgery I think we would feel that another part of our life is gone.

"The difficulty is going to be those who need to travel by bus.

We have a bus at 9.23am but if you have a pass you can't use it before 9.30am.

"If one were to have an evening appointment then you would also have a problem because the buses in this village close down quite early in the evening."

Dr Smith said that in the past year 54 people have only used the walk-in surgery and not been to the Chirk surgery.

The practice has 1,319 patients living in Weston Rhyn and Chirk Bank.

During the meeting a petition against the closure signed by more than 300 people was presented to Dr Smith.

The practice will be opening a new purpose-built clinic next spring in Chirk.

The closure of the walk-in surgery in Weston Rhyn is proposed to coincide with the new facility's opening.