‘You won’t have to go out of town for health services during building work’, says Trust

The clinic, next to the civic centre on Marlowes in Hemel Hempstead, was home to services – many of which are run by the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust – supporting patients with diabetes, chiropody, child development, family planning, mental health and giving up smoking.

Now, ahead of the construction work for Dacorum Borough Council’s heavily-anticipated Forum building on the site, many of these services have already been rehoused elsewhere in the town.

A spokesman for the health trust said: “A number of the Trust’s services have already moved out of the health centre, with the remainder leaving the building by the end of the week.”

However, despite concerns that people would have to travel to Watford or St Albans to access the services in the interim, the Trust assures patients that the moves are temporary while the permanent options are reviewed.

They said ‘there is no reason to believe any of the services will move out of the town’.

The diabetes provision has moved to surgeries in Apsley, Grovehill and Highfield, while child development services have moved to the Pat Lewis Centre in Heath Lane.

Chiropody has also moved to Grovehill and the stop smoking service is now temporarily housed in the civic centre.

The Child And Mental Health Services (CAMHS) will stay in the building for another few weeks until its move to a temporary room in Hemel Hempstead Hospital, but the fate of the family planning service is still not known at this stage.

A spokesman for the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, which runs several of the services under one umbrella, said that patients using the service had been kept fully informed of the changes.

Patients with queries can call the freephone number on 0800 011 6113.