A UNION leader has hit out after it was announced a new nurse has been recruited to carry out warfarin testing scrapped at a facility in Burnham and Berrow, angering patients.

Dr Harvey Sampson, interim associate medical director at Highbridge Medical Centre, announced last week that a nurse has been recruited to support the INR service, which deals with warfarin monitoring, for 19 hours a week.

The service was scrapped at the beginning of July after health chiefs at Burnham and Berrow Medical Centre said they had to ‘concentrate resources on providing essential general practice services’, with patients from the area advised to register at Highbridge to continue receiving their care.

Dr Sampson has revealed that since the service at Burnham and Berrow stopped, more than 90 patients have registered in Highbridge, while 45 patients have turned to alternative medications to manage their condition.

Dave Chapple, chairman of Bridgwater Trade Union Council, hit out at the move, saying he is ‘astonished’ that a nurse couldn’t be recruited to deliver the service in Burnham.

“I am puzzled as to how a nurse can be recruited to carry out warfarin testing at Highbridge Medical Centre but not at Burnham and Berrow Medical Centre,” he said.

“When I attended SCCG’s annual general meeting just a few weeks ago, in justifying the transfer of warfarin clinic patients from the Burnham and Berrow Medical Centre to the one at Highbridge, the doctor said extra staff had been taken on.

“I don’t understand why the service cannot be run at Burnham and Berrow Medical Centre if a nurse can be recruited to carry out the same job a few miles away.”

However, a spokesman for the SCCG said Burnham and Berrow Medical Centre made the decision to halt the service and that it was not down to cost cutting measures.

A spokesman said: “Highbridge Medical Centre has recruited a nurse to perform the blood monitoring and testing for the warfarin patients.

“Burnham Medical Centre did not wish to re-commission the warfarin service.

“This was their choice and not an issue of funding or paying them more money.

“SCCG would have preferred not to put patients in the situation whereby they needed to register with a new practice.

“The CCG is willing to recommission the service should Burnham Medical Centre reconsider its position.”

Debbie Hale, practice manager for Burnham and Berrow Medical Centre said: “We can’t recommission the service because we don’t have enough nurses or GP’s to deliver it at the moment."