Health, wellbeing and regeneration in coastal resorts

Providing primary health care to a coastal resort

Mablethorpe is one of three seaside resorts in East Lindsey District where the main industries are agriculture and tourism.30 The 2001 Census lists the Mablethorpe and Sutton Parish as having a population of 11,780. The resident population of the parish is older than the national average and has high levels of long-term limiting illness. This resident population is swollen each year by people visiting on holiday. These are made up of three groups.

• An older population typically come from ex-mining communities in South Yorkshire. They may have been coming to the resort all their lives, as children, as young adults and now as retired people. They come because it is familiar and because they love it. This group tend to spend about 3–4 months of the year in Mablethorpe and live in the caravan parks and rented accommodation.
  
• Holidaymakers come for 2–3 weeks, during the school holidays, often with young children.
• Day-trippers arrive by coach or by car and come for the sea and the sand.

As with many rural, isolated communities there are relatively few activities and opportunities for young people. Local organisations and businesses want positive change in Mablethorpe through developing new markets and branding to reflect their aspirations for Mablethorpe as a place to live, work31 and visit.

The Mablethorpe Health Centre is part of this new vision. It has come up with ingenious ways in which to offer care to residents and visitors alike. The Practice Manager explains that their patient list has approximately 40 per cent who are over 65 and the list has three times the national average for conditions such as obesity, hypertension, coronary heart disease and diabetes. This means that, although the patient list is 14,000, they are operating as though they had a list size of 21,000 patients. This is not currently recognised in the funding allocations.

Success is hard to come by and is a result of continuing dedication and hard work from staff and care providers alike. Holiday times are busy for staff and this creates difficulty with annual leave. There are two other secrets to their success:

• the building out of which they operate;
  
• the services they provide.

In April 2000, the Practice Manager began discussions with organisations providing care in the town. The GPs and nurses, the ambulance service, the primary care trust and the district council all agreed that services would be improved if they were located under a single roof. The district council provided the land and the primary care trust funded the private finance initiative (PFI) build. The new practice building opened in 2007.

The Mablethorpe Health Centre is an impressive new build in which the design of the building is integral to the way in which staff are able to offer services. The Health Centre plays an important part in contributing to the regeneration of Mablethorpe.

The Health Centre helps to attract staff. There are currently eight GP partners and two trainees. The Health Centre offers many services including community nurses, health visitors, district nurses, Macmillan nurses, podiatry, physiotherapy and dentistry. They have a minor operating suite and an independent pharmacy. The ambulance service also operates from the site. Everything, from the design of the building to the way in which services are provided, is set up so that patients can get all they need in one visit, creating a ‘one stop shop’. Staff at the Centre provide fitness classes and green gyms which boost people’s confidence. They provide care to everyone in Mablethorpe, including the resident population and the visitor populations. The Mablethorpe Health Centre aims to bring services to their elderly patients, avoiding them travelling long distances to hospitals for outpatient appointments, countering the coastal isolation of communities.