Walk-in services will be closing at South Hornchurch Health Centre.

Havering Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) – the body responsible for deciding which health services are provided in the borough – yesterday (November 8) confirmed that residents will instead have to dial 111 to book an appointment.

This decision comes after a 14-week consultation the CCG ran between May and September this year putting forward two proposals for restructuring community urgent care services across Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge.

The CCG said it received more than 1,000 responses to its consultation and option one was selected.

People will still be able to walk in or book urgent appointments at any of the four following “urgent treatment centres”:

- King George Hospital, Barley Lane, Goodmayes

- Queen’s Hospital, Rom Valley Way, Romford

- Harold Wood Polyclinic, Gubbins Lane, Harold Wood

- Barking Community Hospital, Upney Lane

Dr Arnold Fertig, independent GP from the BHR CCGs, said: “We are pleased that more than a year’s worth of quite complex work to reflect the feedback and opinions of thousands of local people, along with the national move towards increased use of an improved NHS 111 service and better equipped urgent treatment centres has come together and today been agreed.

“We still have a lot of work to do, to commission the new service and to pick up a number of issues raised by partners and to make sure that we effectively communicate the changes that will be made.

“Our aim all along has been clear – to provide a simpler, more effective and improved community urgent care service for local people. “We can now get on and look to deliver what people have told us they want.”