PATIENTS of a Newport GP surgery scheduled to close next month despite significant opposition, have a third opportunity to voice their concerns at a meeting with health officials next Tuesday.

But a Gwent health boss, while recognising that closing Malpas medical centre and transferring patients to the Malpas Brook practice will present difficulties for some, says keeping it open is not feasible.

The centre will close on April 1, with the 2,200 patients of the former single-handed GP practice based there transferring to Malpas Brook or being helped to find an alternative.

While a small majority (203 to 191) indicated in an Aneurin Bevan Community Health Council survey that they were in favour of Malpas Brook taking over, many of those in favour wanted the centre retained as a branch surgery.

The proposal to close it altogether has prompted their anger, with concerns about the journey down the hill to Malpas Brook foremost among reasons for opposition.

Julie Thomas, Aneurin Bevan Health Board's locality director for Newport, said retaining Malpas medical centre given the options available, is untenable.

"Other than in very exceptional circumstances these days, we do not replace single-handed practices like-for-like," she said.

"There are very good reasons, such as it being difficult for the GP to keep up-to-date, lack of peer review, and not least, new GPs will not work in single-handed practices."

Mrs Thomas admitted that two patients' meetings held so far have been "difficult" but given the responses to invitations for other practices to submit business cases for Malpas medical centre, the room for manoeuvre was limited.

"If we could have appointed someone to run this as a really effective branch surgery, we would have. We looked at the patient survey but could not deliver what they were asking for," said Mrs Thomas.

"Malpas Brook submitted a really good business plan and will provide a high quality service in a sustainable way."

Three formal letters of complaint about the issue have been received by the health board.

The patients' meeting on Tuesday February 22 takes place at Malpas Court, from 6.30pm.