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Have your say on the proposed new health and care centre in Ilford

Healthcare reception centre

We are asking people who live, work or visit Ilford or the nearby area to share their views on our plans to create a new health and care centre within the Ilford Exchange shopping centre.

Our plans for the new centre would provide easy access to a range of health, social care and community services in a central location in Ilford town centre to better meet the needs of local people. This page will tell you more about the plans, which services could be in the new centre and how you can give us your feedback. You can also download a copy of the consultation document to read. 

We also have a easy read version of the consultation document which also includes a survey. 

We would like you to share your views with us from Monday 26 September until Sunday 6 November.

How to share your views

Have your say and help us shape our plans for a new health centre in Ilford town centre.

The quickest way to share your feedback is by taking part in our online survey. You can also print the survey and post to Ilford Exchange survey, Freepost NHS North East London, hand to one of the team at one of our events or fill in online and email to bhr.communications@nhs.net. The survey will close at midnight on Sunday 6 November 2022.

You can come along to one of our events at the Redbridge Central Library, Clements Road or you can sign up to join one of our online events via this link: ilfordhealthcentre.eventbrite.co.uk to find out more information and ask questions about the new health centre:

Monday 10 October 5pm – 6.30pmRedbridge Central library
Monday 17 October11.30am – 1pmRedbridge Central library 
Wednesday 19 October5.30pm – 7pmOnline via Zoom
Tuesday 1 November 10am – 11.30amOnline via Zoom

To request this document in other formats such as large print or a different language please email bhr.communications@nhs.net.

Supporting documents

This document has been produced by NHS North East London with NELFT NHS Foundation Trust and the London Borough of Redbridge, and with other stakeholders who are all working as part of the Redbridge Place Based Partnership. The partnership includes key partners who all work across Redbridge on improving and making a positive difference to people’s lives with a focus on prevention and ensuring everyone has fair access to health and care services.

NHS North East London is responsible for planning and buying health services across north east London to meet our populations’ needs, making sure all parts of the local health system work well together.

NELFT provides a wide range of integrated community and mental health services for people living in the London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest.

Your views on these proposals will help us develop safe, high-quality, joined-up and accessible services for our communities today and for future generations. Your feedback will be collected and put into a report which will be fed back to the team working on these proposals before final decisions are made. The final report will be published on the North East London NHS website.

We will protect the information we receive from you and store it securely in line with data-protection rules. We will keep your information confidential and will not share any of your personal information when reporting statistics.

Our plans for a new health and care centre would provide space for GP services, as well as local health, community and social care services from two floors in the Ilford Exchange shopping centre.

Ilford has a growing and vibrant multi-cultural population but at the moment there is not enough space to provide enough GP services to meet the needs of local people. Our existing community and health and social care services nearby are also based in poor-quality, outdated premises.

Having these services in a modern building in a central location with excellent transport links, would allow us to better meet the health and wellbeing needs of the local community. The centre would allow a range of services to run from one building, meaning people would be able to access multiple services at the same time all in one place. It would also provide us with the space to bring health services to the centre of Ilford.

Bringing healthcare into the high street in this way could have multiple benefits including:  

  • A central Ilford location that is easy to get to by foot, bus and train
  • A flexible, modern space that can adapt to the changing needs of the population
  • More space to provide health services not previously available in Ilford town centre
  • A “one-stop-shop” where people can access more than one service in a single visit
  • NHS and social care working together to make sure your care is more joined up
  • Ensure Ilford’s diverse communities are able to access the health and care support services that they need

GP services

We are in discussion with two local GP practices about their plans to provide additional services at the new health centre. Both of these GP practices are currently in buildings that are too small to allow them to expand to meet the needs of the growing population. The proposals would see the two GP practices open an additional surgery each at the health centre meaning both can offer more appointments to existing and new patients within the local area from multiple sites. In the coming months any GP practices looking to make changes will discuss those plans in more detail with their patients.

The health centre will also provide space for additional health and care services delivered through local Primary Care Networks, where neighbouring GPs work together to provide services such as vaccinations and health checks. We want your view on what types of GP-led services could be offered at the centre. 

A new community blood testing service

At the moment there are a number of places in Ilford that residents can go to for blood tests. We are proposing providing an additional site for a blood testing service at the new Ilford health and care centre.

Health and Adult Social Care Services

The Redbridge Community Health and Social Care Services (HASS) is an integrated service for health and adult social care, jointly provided by NELFT and the London Borough of Redbridge. The service provides care and support to vulnerable older people and people over 18 who either have a learning disability and/or autism; have a physical and/or sensory disability, or need mental health support.

The Cranbrook and Loxford HASS team is currently based on Albert Road in Ilford, just a five-minute walk away from the Ilford Exchange. This team includes social workers, occupational therapists, nurses and individual specialist teams.

Universal Children’s services (0-19)

This service is run by health visiting and school nurse teams who provide public health services to children, young people and their families.

The health visiting team works with families with children under five years old supporting them with health issues, referring them to other services, if needed, and giving advice.

The school nurses work closely with the health visiting team and children from the ages of 5 to 19 years old. They provide health services in school settings for children and their parents. The team also provides vaccinations within schools.

This service is currently based in Seven Kings and could move to the new centre in Ilford Exchange less than 1.5 miles away.

A new community podiatry service

Podiatrists are medical specialists who help with problems that affect your feet or lower legs. The Redbridge podiatry department provides a service to high risk patients with long term conditions, such as arthritis, blood circulation conditions and diabetes, which can affect their feet. We are proposing to introduce this service in the new centre.

Mental health support services

The Redbridge Talking Therapies service provides a wide range of treatments and services to help people with common mental health problems like stress, anxiety and depression. The service is free for people over the age of 18 registered with a GP in Redbridge. Currently the team does not have a central Ilford location so being based at the new centre would allow for better access to the therapies service and also allow for face to face and group therapy sessions.

Long term conditions services

A long-term condition is one that generally lasts a year or longer and impacts on a person’s life. Examples include heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and asthma. They are also known as chronic conditions.

There are currently 53,218 people in Redbridge living with one or more long-term conditions.

We are proposing that the new centre will have the following services to support those with certain long-term conditions:

  • Community heart failure service which provides long-term medical management and support for patients suffering from chronic heart failure
  • Respiratory service which provides treatment, care and self-management programmes for patients living with conditions that affect their breathing
  • Pulmonary rehabilitation service which provides a program of exercise and education for patients with long term conditions that affect their breathing
  • Diabetes group education offering face to face diabetes education courses that can give people with diabetes the confidence to look after their condition well