A COMMUNITY-RUN health club in Cirencester is being threatened with closure after the NHS recently withdrew its support.

Cirencester Leg Club, also known as the Lindsay Leg Club, could close down after Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust (GCSNHST) decided to stop providing nurses for the group.

The club, which has been running for 11 years is to be moved from its current location in the heart of the Cirencester into a GCSNHST hospital site.

President of the Leg Club Ellie Lindsay said: " This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the very ethos of a patient centred social model of care with its inherent benefits of addressing social isolation, fostering positive heath beliefs and enabling opportunistic diagnosis and health promotion."

She has now urged the trust to carefully think about their decision and to also listen and communicate with patients.

Cirencester Leg Club is a community-based clinic providing treatment, advice, and maintenance for those experiencing leg related conditions. It is a partnership between patients, nurses and the community and care is delivered in a friendly and non-medical environment.

The club is owned by the patients, volunteers and public who raise funds for the premises and equipment. Nurses from Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust attend to treat their patients.

According the the Leg Club, GCSNHST has withdrawn its support without any consultation with patients.

A GCSNHST spokesman said that despite leaving the leg club, they are creating a new lower limb and complex wound service which will be provided across the county. Trust chief executive Paul Jennings thanked the leg club for the its 11 years of service.

He said: "We are implementing a unified model which will allow more people access to consistently high-quality care, and improve co-ordination of care between community services, GPs and the acute hospitals in Gloucester and Cheltenham.

"This is a community-based project, based on our commitment to develop services for the people of Gloucestershire in a forward-thinking way. While this does mean redeploying our nurses from the Lindsay Leg Club it will allow the development of what we believe will be a new and improved service in collaboration with our acute and GP colleagues."

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