Frustration that £11.5m health hub has no GPs

A new £11.5m health facility is being criticised for not offering a GP service.

King's Lynn Health Hub (KLHH), in Norfolk, opened in spring 2025 and offers mental health, pharmacy and physiotherapy services.

Alexandra Kemp, an independent councillor on the Borough Council of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, said primary health care services including general practice were promised.

King's Lynn Primary Care Network (KLPCN), which operates from the hub, said it was "surprised" to hear the concerns and that there were no plans to put GPs in the hub.

The KLHH was built on the Nar Ouse Way to the south of King's Lynn.

When it was commissioned by NHS Norfolk and Suffolk Integrated Care Board (NSICB) the aim was to relieve pressure on the town's existing GP surgeries and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

Since it opened a number of hospital clinics have been relocated to the hub including dermatology and antenatal care.

Kemp said more doctors were needed to care for people moving to the area.

"There's going to be 2,000 houses in King's Lynn, 4,000 in West Winch and we can't even get a doctor in South Lynn where we've had hundreds of new houses in a relatively tightly packed urban community with health issues," she said.

She said people were "sick and tired" of excuses around GP provision at the hub.

Dr Pallavi Devulapalli is a GP in west Norfolk and also an independent borough councillor on the authority.

She said while the staff working in the hub were "very much needed", the plan to establish primary care services at the KLHH were "half-baked".

Devulapalli said: "I think it would be a betrayal for a GP not to work from there because the funding was for a primary care centre."

The hub is being used by the QEH as a way to ensure patients are being treated in the community where possible.

Carly West-Burnham, the director of strategy and integration at the QEH, feels the KLHH has had a positive impact on the town's hospital so far.

She said: "We see this as one way in which we're going to start to deliver services much closer to our patients, so moving them off our acute hospital site."

Work is also under way to build a new hospital on the QEH car park.

NSICB did not respond to the BBC's questions about the hub.

In an email to Kemp seen by the BBC, Sadie Parker, the director of primary care at NSICB, said: "We acknowledge the strength of feeling and the concerns you [Kemp] have raised."

She said they would be passed on to the KLPCN.

Dr Caroline Delves, the clinical director of KLPCN, told the BBC: "We were clear from the start of the project that we didn't have the resourcing to put GPs in the hub."

Do you have a story suggestion for Norfolk? Contact us below.

Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.