Andy Andrews (no connection) of West End, in Eastleigh, wrote recently (‘Centre is a case of NHS reorganisation gone mad’, Echo, January 20) to complain that he had been told he could not use the Bitterne NHS Walk-In Centre, and it is a disgrace that patients in the Borough of Eastleigh do not have a walk-in centre.

However, the redundant Moorgreen Hospital site in West End could provide an out-of-hours facility to supplement GP services and lots of other NHS and social care facilities, which would be accessible to all patients to the east of Southampton.

Eastleigh Borough Council is currently consulting on development proposals for the Moorgreen site, which is owned by the NHS.

A three-storey NHS facility is proposed for the site, but will it be large enough to provide the services needed by local people and all those living east of the River Itchen?

Will it be designed to tackle the community care response to the current hospital discharge problems?

Will the necessary car parking spaces be provided?

The council’s proposal also allows for extra housing development on NHS land and this will surround the Countess Mountbatten hospice and reduce the land available for NHS use.

It is important that Eastleigh patients, currently having to trek to Southampton or Portsmouth or across Hampshire for medical appointments, make their voices heard by responding to the consultation.

The Moorgreen site is a unique opportunity to meet the health and social care needs of the present and future population in the southern parishes of Eastleigh borough.

It must be developed in pursuit of health, not wealth.

DIANE ANDREWES, chair, Eastleigh Southern Parishes Older People’s Forum.