HEALTH Secretary Jeremy Hunt could overturn controversial plans to close a walk-in centre in Southampton.

The Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel – a body made up of city councillors – has the power to refer the potential closure of the Bitterne Walk-In Centre to Mr Hunt, and prospective city MP Royston Smith, below, has called on the committee to do so.

Daily Echo: Royston Smith

He was speaking ahead of the panel meeting tonight to discuss the plans to shut the centre as part of a pilot study.

The Southampton Clinical Commissioning Group and Solent NHS Trust say the closure is to see if its services can be delivered through GP services and community care, but it sparked a furious response from residents and politicians.

Prospective Labour Itchen MP Rowenna Davis launched a petition against the move which has received more than 800 signatures, and her Conservative rival Cllr Smith has put forward costsaving plans to the CCG to protect the centre.

And on Saturday, Southampton’s Trade Unionists and Social Coalition held a public meeting in which they called for the closure to be scrapped.

Daily Echo: Bitterne Walk-in Centre

Cllr Smith wrote to panel chairman Matt Stevens saying: “The Health Overview Scrutiny Panel has the powers to refer this matter directly to the Secretary of State for Health and it would be my proposal that this should be your approach.

“I cannot accept that the closure of a vital local service such as this can happen without a full public consultation.

“I therefore believe this leaves an appeal to the Secretary of State the only course of action.”

Speaking before tonight’s meeting, which takes place at 6pm at the Civic Centre, he added: “I think that it was a disgrace that the CCG did not feel that a decision on a publiclyfunded service warranted a discussion with the public, which is why I want this to be referred to the Secretary of State.”

Despite numerous attempts to contact Cllr Stevens, he did not respond to the Daily Echo’s enquiries.

When asked about Cllr Smith’s proposals, council leader Simon Letts said: “It is of course up to the members of the panel.

“But I hope that they use the power that they have to ask the Secretary of State to intervene.”

A spokesman for Mr Hunt said: “The reconfiguration of frontline health services is a matter for the local NHS, which is now for the first time controlled by local doctors and nurses, who know what their patients need.

“If proposals are contested, then the Secretary of State may ask the Independent Reconfiguration Panel for its advice.”