A NEW in-house GP has joined the team at Helston Community Hospital after two local practices withdrew cover.

In June the Packet reported how four of the hospital's 24 beds had to be temporarily closed for patient safety, due to a lack of cover, although they have since reopened.

It was after Helston Medical Centre and Mullion Health Centre, which shared the GP cover of the beds, both gave notice on their contracts within three months of each other.

Both practices decided the commitment to the community hospital was too much alongside increasing demands on their in-surgery care, and their own recruitment challenges.

The Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which manages the hospital, decided the best answer was for it to have its own GP.

Katherine Jory has now started work at Helston, having already been working for the trust in the community, and a nurse practitioner is now being recruited.

Tamsyn Anderson, the trust’s director of primary care, said: “The practices made a very difficult decision. They have very strong links to the community hospital but didn’t feel they could continue this with competing demands from the practice.

“We decided to close the beds temporarily because we wanted to be confident that the medical staffing we had in place was going to be safe and we didn’t want to leave people without cover. Then we looked at what our medical cover should look like.”

The main focus at Helston is rehabilitation of patients who have experienced something that reduces their independence, such as a fall or pneumonia.

“Unfortunately these sorts of things make our older patients frailer than they were. Our aim is to get them back to independence,” said Dr Anderson. “We are looking after slightly sicker patients, so we need robust medical cover.”

She added that Dr Jory had done a lot of frailty work in other parts of the county and now brought all that experience to Helston.

Dr Anderson said she was confident there was a "really good model" in place at the hospital, with "doctors totally focussed on hospital patients."

"We have a number of GPs who really value working in a community hospital and portfolio GP roles are growing. This type of role lends itself to this way of working – with two or three days on a ward and two or three in general practice," she added.