It's being reported that the on-site Pharmacy will close next month
Recent petitions have been launched by locals and backed up by Uckfield's MP Mims Davies to protect services at the Community Hospital, but it looks increasingly likely that they have fallen on deaf ears.
The East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, who provide a range of day surgery cases at Uckfield have said that it wants to increase the overall number of day surgery procedures by moving treatments to hospitals in Eastbourne and Hastings. The consultant-led unit provides day surgery for vascular,maxillofacial (dental and skin cancer lesions), urology, ENT, trauma and orthopaedic conditions.
Now Kamsons Pharmacy will close its doors in a few weeks after the NHS 'massively” increased its rent. Kamsons has run a pharmacy at Uckfield Hospital for 30 years but says 'the double whammy of a rent hike plus reductions in NHS funding of pharmacies means it is no longer viable.
NHS Property says it has tried to negotiate with Kamsons, and offered a rent 'significantly lower' than the market rate, but this had been turned down. It is now talking to the GP surgery which may move into the vacant unit after Kamsons moves out on 1 March this year.